


Tethered

by Sasou_Amalie



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Banter, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Cyberpunk 2077 Spoilers, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Introspection, Light Dom/sub, Male-Female Friendship, May/December Relationship, Missing Scene, Nomad V (Cyberpunk 2077), POV Alternating, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, The Devil Ending (Cyberpunk 2077), the slowest burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:21:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28965279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sasou_Amalie/pseuds/Sasou_Amalie
Summary: A blissfully unaware Goro Takemura sets out to avenge Saburo-samas death – the ensuing chaos throwing him for a loop only one person can help him make sense of: the half-dead petty thief he rescued from the Night City landfill.
Relationships: Goro Takemura & Female V, Goro Takemura/Female V, Goro Takemura/V
Comments: 28
Kudos: 98





	1. Two Waves

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains some spoilers for the main storyline of Cyberpunk 2077, especially concerning the missions with Takemura.  
> I thought writing a sort of fix-it fic would help me get over the fact that you can't romance him, but here we are – again – this time unpacking the budding friendship/possible relationship of the ill-assorted couple that stole our hearts – an Arasaka soldier and a petty thief.
> 
> Shout out to all the amazing fics in this fandom, you guys truly came up with a humbling amount of inspiring stories, keep the good stuff coming!
> 
> In case you're just here for the smutty parts, check out [Chapter 8: Take Me With You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28965279/chapters/72396549)
> 
> Just cranked this one out without a proper beta read, so there might be minor changes coming.  
> Sorry for any punctuation or grammar mistakes, english is not my first language.  
> Hope you enjoy this anyways, feedback is always welcome!

He walked quickly, sidestepping disintegrating trash, scrap metal and puddles of what could be mud or feces, the smell assaulting his nostrils almost making him retch. He was disgusted by everything that had to do with this hellhole and determined to get this situation fixed as soon as possible so he could bid his farewell to Night City from the comfort of an AV returning to Tokyo.  
That fat fuck of fixer trotted a few feet in front of him, wheezing under the extreme exertion of moving his obese frame through the landfill.  
It had been surprisingly easy to track him down, despite his frantic efforts at tying up loose ends – with the netrunner and both of the mercs already gone, he’d been on the brink of splitting, when Takemura had ambushed him in his filthy room at the No Tell Motel. Much to the bodyguards displeasure the fixer didn’t even put up a fight after he’d gunned down his huscle, instead he immediately tried to cut himself a deal: walking off scot-free for handing over the corpse of the merc he’d offed. Knowing that time was of the essence, Takemura agreed and demanded to be brought to the exact location.

“Body’s gotta be here somewhere, choom,” Dex panted, stumbling onward. “Had to hide her well, might take a minute to find the spot…” They stepped around the carcass of a car, when a movement in the distance caught Takemura’s eye, something looking a lot like a human-sized, drenched cat digging itself through the scrap littering its path, slowly inching towards them.  
A quick scan revealed the same signature he’d already noticed in the penthouse of Konpeki Plaza, that filthy creature squirming through the mud was the mercenary he’d come to know as just V.  
“It appears that you are as incompetent an executioner as you are a fixer,” Takemura scoffed, his icy stare trained on Dex, the english language unfamiliar and unwieldy in his mouth. “She is over there, still alive.” Dex’s eyes grew wide before he turned around, horrified to see that V had indeed risen from her grave. 

“I put a bullet in her brain,” he stuttered, his gaze flickering between the Arasaka soldier and V lying in the dirt. “Her biomon went black.”  
“Get her over here,” Takemura demanded, crossing his arms in front of his chest and Dexter hurried to comply. He watched the merc’s body go limp as soon as DeShawn grabbed her by the arms to drag her towards the clearing in the mud, slowly shaking his head when he witnessed just how much the fat man struggled to move her tiny frame. DeShawn propped her up against his car, panting again, and proceeded to turn towards him, but Takemura only paid attention to the mercenary, whose lids fluttered open.  
“Urgh, heavier than she looks,” Dex complained, bending over to catch his breath, while the bodyguard eyed the woman in the back, her corpo-costume covered in filth, blood encrusting half her face and parts of her head, making her hair stick to her skull in dirty strands. She looked like a well-worn rag doll, a thing somebody had grown tired of playing with and then tossed aside, a perfect analogy for many lives ending in Night City.  
“Now listen, dawg. I’ve done exactly what you asked,” DeShawn started talking, ripping Takemura from his thoughts. “So le’ss you an’ me figure this…” A quiet sight left his lips before he wrapped his fingers around his revolver, moved it in one fluid motion, ending the conversation by putting a bullet in DeShawns head. The sudden quiet was a relief, the knowledge of having found Saburo-sama’s killer alive, giving him the opportunity to prove his loyalty to the Arasaka family and avenging their leader’s death, filling him with grim satisfaction.  
He watched the merc’s breath quicken when he walked over to her, a soft hum of contentment leaving his lips as he dialed Yorinobu’s number to inform him about his latest finds.  
“Arasaka-sama, I have found your father’s killer,” he told Yorinobu as soon as he picked up, assuring him that he was certain about it being her.  
He’d just agreed to deliver her to Arasaka tower, postponing his impending retribution out of respect for the chain of command and the ranks that came with it, when she looked at him and opened her split lips.  
“Help me…” she croaked between ragged breaths, her impudent interruption angering him, so he struck her down to avoid having to listen to yet another person begging for their life today.  
He wiped his hands on his pants and got up, glancing at the curled up woman at his feet, a sudden doubt creeping inside his chest. She looked so innocent and harmless that he had a hard time imagining her as Saburo-samas killer, yet she was the one he’d uncovered inside the penthouse. Takemura decided to not dwell on this issue any further and hurried to drop her inside his car, ready to get out of this disgusting dump.  
  
She came to her senses once again as he sat down in the driver’s seat next to her and started the car. Her head was flopping against the headrest, eyes rolling in their sockets as she tried to fix her gaze on him. Takemura grimaced at the putrid smell her body exuded, her dirty clothes sullying his car to an extent that made his skin crawl, so he gave vent to his anger by letting her know that she smelled like shit right before she passed out again.  
Driving on the mud path meandering through the landfill was a tedious task, the tires of the sports car slipping on the mucky ground frequently, forcing the bodyguard to fully concentrate on steering the vehicle through the dawn in an unknown city. In hindsight he should’ve known that there were no margins for inattention in a matter that delicate, but when he realized that, it was already too late and the motorcycles that had been following them along the overpass leading towards Watson had closed in, the three assassins riddling the car with bullets.  
The bodyguard cursed underneath his breath and proceeded to unholster his weapon while taking cover behind the wheel, aiming the muzzle at the head of the first one daring to catch up with their car, killing him with a clean headshot. He felt a tingling sensation running down his spine as the truth of Yorinobu’s betrayal dawned on him – after all he was the only person who knew what he’d been up to since Saburo had been killed and the mercs escaped Konpeki Plaza. He heard the revving of an engine, one of the motorcyclists cutting lanes in front of his car trying to slow him down, while the other one inched towards the passenger’s side. Takemura gave V a quick look, but she was still unconscious, hunched over in the seat. He lifted his right hand to greet the hitman closing in with a bullet between the eyes when he felt a sudden searing pain ripping through his upper arm. He floored the pedal, causing the car to accelerate with a jerk so violent it catapulted the killer in front of them into oncoming traffic.  
Clenching his teeth in an attempt to keep himself from screaming out in pain, he cradled his injured arm in his lap to catch a breath. A long forgotten sensation surged inside his chest, so unfamiliar it took a while for him to realize that it was indeed fear that seeped into his heart, making it race and stumble. A quick look into the mirror revealed a fresh group of exterminators coming their way and he knew right then and there that he needed help if he wanted to make it out alive.  
“You hear me?” he shouted, glancing at V, whose lids fluttered weakly. “I need your help!”  
Her eyes barely opened, but he placed the air hypo in her palm anyway, relieved to see her lift it to her chest, in order to administer her spend body the much needed adrenaline and oxygen. She took a deep breath, now wide awake, and he could feel her questioning gaze burn into the back of his head right before she tossed the empty container out the car, suddenly face to face with the hit squad zeroing in on them. After ducking from the onslaught of bullets destroying the windshield and taking out another motorcyclist, he wordlessly handed her his tech pistol, well aware of the fact that she might as well put a bullet in his skull.  
  
Instead she checked the unusual weapon, loaded it and effortlessly propped herself up in the seat, unleashing lead onto their attackers with a precision he’d seldom witnessed before. Seconds after he’d entrusted her his gun, the first bike burst into flames, leaving them with one more exterminator to fight. Takemura braced himself behind the wheel, then rammed the side of their car into the opponent, whose bike skidded off the road in a shower of sparks. Barely able to cushion the impact, the bodyguard tightened his grip around the wheel, causing the car to swerve and spin, forcing the Arasaka soldier to drive in reverse in order to keep moving.  
V bared her teeth and reloaded the weapon, the adrenaline flowing through her veins numbing the pain from the various bullets that had found their way into her body, leaving Takemura wondering what kind of combat stim she was on. He did his best to keep the vehicle steady so she could take out the remaining assassin, warning her that the booster wouldn’t last any longer. She just furrowed her brows and held on to the headrest as he turned the car around, when one of the exterminators flung himself off his bike, right onto the back of the car, sinking his mantis blades into the sheet metal of the body.  
“Shoot him!” was the only thing he managed to utter before the both of them had to cover from the blades wielded to decapitate them. V kept the gun trained on his face as the exterminator flipped onto the hood, beads of sweat running down her forehead, and he instantly knew she wouldn’t last much longer.  
He swerved to the right, towards the switchbacks leading to the badlands, hoping for the centrifugal forces to pluck their enemy right off the car.  
“Die already!” he cursed in Japanese, to which the exterminator replied with a simple “Traitor” while the mercenary pumped his body full of bullets.  
By now there was only one way to get rid of their attacker and Takemura readied himself for the impact, muttering a quick “burn in hell” before driving head first into the column of a billboard, crushing the exterminator between the car and concrete.  
  
The bodyguard stumbled out of the burning wreck, hurrying over to the passenger side. Relief flooded his chest when he felt V’s pulse, shallow but steady. She was slipping in and out of consciousness, her forehead split open after her head had collided with the dashboard, face and lips awfully pale, gun still in her palm. Takemura grabbed her by the back of her blouse and dragged her out of the wreckage, towards safety.  
“Don’t you dare faint again,” he uttered, trying to hold her gaze. “Keep your eyes open.”  
There was something in her glance, a defiance burning in a brightness that haunted him and for a second he feared she’d peeked behind his facade, but then her head lolled to her shoulder.  
“Fuck,” she groaned, swallowing hard, followed by a shot piercing the silence as she finished the task at hand. He wrestled the gun from her fingers, suddenly uncomfortably aware that, if she’d set her stubborn mind to it, she could probably finish him off, too. Her injuries looked way more extensive in broad daylight, staring at the bullet hole in her skull he realized that it was indeed a miracle that she was still alive.  
“We both could use medical attention,” he assessed dryly. “Do you know a ripperdoc whom you can trust?”  
“I know… someone,” she pressed through gritted teeth.  
“We must get to a ripperdoc. Quickly!” he urged her, the pain and exhaustion from his own injuries gradually overpowering the adrenaline surging through him.  
“Viktor… will fix us up,” she uttered, eyes fluttering close.  
He ordered her to call someone to pick them up, annoyed that she still found the strength to argue before she finally secured transportation and passed out, regardless of him shouting at her.  
The bodyguard sat down, his eyes on her pale face, monitoring her breathing. Just yesterday he’d been sitting in an AV, next to Saburo-sama, on their way to retrieve the Relic Yorinobu had stolen.  
A simple job, he thought, in and out in under 24 hours. A part of him wished Saburo hadn’t sent him away, after all his intuition had been right, but who was he to defy a direct command? He sighed deeply, unable to wrap his head around what could only be the truth: Yorinobu had killed his father in cold blood, and the girl on the asphalt next to him was the only remaining witness of his heinous patricide. The hopelessness of his situation hit him hard and he choked, sour bile rising in his throat. His gaze jumped to V’s bashed-in skull and the bloodstains on her clothes, the sudden fear that she might actually die making his stomach turn, causing him to hunch over and throw up right next to his feet.


	2. Sleep Tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With both of them still reeling from their individual injuries, Takemura and V must find their ways back to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is some sort of split-chapter, where I examine both views on everything that has happened throughout and after "The Heist". I love both characters for their complexity and dynamic, further explorations will follow 'cause I'm having way too much fun.
> 
> All chapter-titles of this work are songs by the band Holy Fawn – in case you're into Post Rock, go check them out!
> 
> Have fun reading and feel free to drop a few words, feedback is always appreciated :)

Takemura sat in the dim light falling through the half-opened shutters of the dump he’d temporarily commissioned as his hideout, legs outstretched on the floor, leaning against the side of the filthy bed, the pain in his arm a dull and throbbing baseline as his thoughts wandered.  
Viktor had warned him that disabling most of his implants also meant cutting off the automatic supply of combat stims and painkillers, resulting in an unusual amount of pain and discomfort, at least for a couple of days.  
The Arasaka soldier bared his teeth, the white hot rage he felt whenever his thoughts danced around Yorinobu relentlessly gnawing away at his insides, making it hard to think straight.  
He took a deep breath, forcing his mind to focus on something practical, the tasks at hand, to calm the fire burning inside of him.  
First, he needed V to get better. He considered Vik’s assessment of her upcoming recovery to be somewhat optimistic, given the ripperdoc hadn’t seen the merc clawing her way out of the filth and junk Dex DeShawn had buried her under, barely hanging on to life.  
The knowledge that there was still a chance that she could die due to the extensive nature of the surgeries Viktor had to perform on her, tightened his chest.  
To be reminded of the transience of one‘s life just by seeing the frail creature slumping in the ripper’s chair was hard to take, her small frame wrapped in bandages, the face still bruised after Vik had to take her skull apart in order to put her back together and the Arasaka soldier remembered how much strength it had cost him to look at her lying there, more dead than alive. At some point Misty must’ve cleaned her up, without all the make up and blood clinging to her skin Takemura realized that she had to be even younger than he initially thought – in her mid-twenties at best – the good parts of life yet to come, given she made it through the night.

He wondered if things would’ve turned out differently, had Saburo-sama let him finish his sweep.  
A few seconds more and he would’ve known everything about the person hiding in the maintenance nook inside in the screen, giving him the opportunity to announce and then remove the threat. The soldier entertained a reverie about digging his enhanced fingertips into the pale softness of her throat, dragging her out into the open, while she kicked and screamed and clawed at him, his vice-like grip unwavering. Saburo-sama would’ve taken the Relic into custody and retreated towards the AV awaiting him on the landing pod, leaving the thief at Yorinobu’s mercy, who probably would’ve tasked Smasher with obliterating her. Meanwhile, Takemura would’ve joined Saburo-sama, leaning back into the comfortable seat, his eyes on the wretched city he hated with every fiber of his being, not giving the petty thief dying in the penthouse another thought.  
  
Funny how mere moments had proven to mark the most important turning points in his life, time and time again over the past sixty years. He’d just finished washing his threadbare shirt in the contaminated waters of Chiba-11, when the Arasaka patrol deemed him worthy enough to become one of their own. The moment Saburo-sama lingered a split second while he stood at attention, a young soldier who’d just made it into the special forces, chosen to guard the leader of Arasaka. A short exchange in Saburo-samas office at the family compound in Tokyo, where his boss asked him to refrain from informing Oda-san about their departure to Night City, not wanting to worry his daughter. The seconds he waited at the foot of the stairs leading into the penthouse, his eyes trained on Saburo-sama, that later turned out to be the ones missing to complete the scan.

It felt wrong to leave her behind in this reality, but after learning that he’d been framed for the murder of Saburo-sama, inevitably turning him into Arasaka’s most wanted rogue soldier, he knew he had to stay off the streets for a few days in order to let the heat surrounding his person die down.  
He followed his unusually sentimental urge to check on her one last time, mildly surprised to see her somewhat conscious, her eyes trained on his face as he analyzed the data stream her biomon provided. The numbers coincided with Viktor’s evaluation, her body was restoring even faster than the both of them had expected. Pleased with this development and the hope that came with it, he gently squeezed her shoulder, encouraging her to pull through before he finally left the clinic.

***

V woke up to the sensation of warm summer rain pelting down on her head and shoulders, the memory of sitting atop an old railroad service tower with her boyfriend at the time drifting by, tugging at her heartstrings. She yearned for the comfort of smelling rain water on hot, dusty roads, the feeling of being at home, being part of a family. It took her all the willpower she had left to peel her lids open, only to find herself on the floor of her seedy shower, drenched to the bones, blood on her palms and thighs.  
She rubbed at the crimson spots, wondering about the looming sensation of static in the back of her neck before she carefully stood up and walked over to her mirror.  
The pale face with dark circles underneath her eyes startled her way more that the dried blood sticking to her upper lip. A few splashes of water later, the impending feeling of danger sent chills down her spine and she turned around, half-heartedly expecting to find an intruder sitting in her apartment, but it was empty.  
  
Something flickered in the back of her mind and suddenly, she remembered. The Arasaka soldier, letting go of her ankles, collapsing against a parked Delamain, Viktor rushing over to check on him, shouting at Misty for assistance.  
Viktor hovering over her spent body, in a screaming match with the Delamain AI, who alerted him about the fact that she went into neurogenic shock and was dying, to which Vik replied that he’d cut his way trough her occipital bone, that there was no other way. She remembered her heart thundering inside her chest while her field of vision frayed around the edges, certain that death was indeed reaching for her.  
Freezeframes of Misty comforting her while Viktor operated on the Arasaka soldier fell back into place and she recalled both men looking at her from across the room, obviously discussing her condition, much to her displeasure. The bodyguard stood tall, in a shirt so crisp and white it hurt her eyes, hands folded in front of his body, his whole demeanor leaving her with an uneasy feeling burrowing inside her guts, before she drifted away again.  
  
She woke up to him checking on her vitals, his expression unmoved and businesslike, the only human interaction between them were his fingers gently pressing her shoulder before the darkness that pulled her under swallowed him as well. There was Vik’s voice, low and gentle, trying to coax her back to life and blinding pain searing through her brain, accompanied by glitches clouding her vision, so intense it made parts of her wish that she’d died on his table after all.  
V felt Vik’s presence guiding her through all the days she spent at his clinic, most of the time he sat at her side, carefully watching over her every breath, patiently awaiting her return.  
Once she’d clawed her way back to consciousness, she told him about the dreams she’d had while she was out of it and he informed her about the Relic inside her head ever so gentle, still shattering her just after she’d barely put herself back together.  
V recalled her voice croaking “Two? Me and who, Vik, who’s the other?” and Vik sighing deeply.  
“Johnny Silverhand,” he replied, his tone flat and tired. “A terrorist – real talk o’ the town back in my day.” His contrite grimace before he dealt the devastating blow, that settled into her stomach like a ton of bricks, was forever etched into her brain, along with his final diagnosis.  
“The biochip… it’s basically a bomb, fuse lit already. You don’t have much time left… much life. A few weeks tops. Silverhand’s construct is overwriting your consciousness – gradually taking over your body until one day you’ll just be… gone.”  
  
Vik’s words made her feel like a fuse inside her head had blown and the horror of meeting Johnny for the very first time came crashing in on her, accompanied by an intense feeling of panic that made her breath catch in her chest. She panted, greedily sucking air into her lungs as she remembered the man standing next to her bed, pestering her for a smoke, who struck her down when she denied him the pleasure of nicotine filling his borrowed lungs, screaming at her, wanting to know who she worked for. The hostility of the construct housed inside the nooks and crannies of her brain was palpable, transpiring into his every word and movement, acted out with a hatefulness that left her feeling scared and unhinged at the same time. Both of them simultaneously coming to the conclusion that they were sharing a body turned the two souls trapped in the hollow of her chest into opposing forces violently fighting for the upper hand, leading Silverhand to bash her face against the window multiple times, the blood shooting out her nostrils leaving smudges on the glass and her face, until she passed out again.  
Next thing she saw was Silverhand, bitchslapping her so hard she toppled to the floor, unable to stand up she was forced to listen in on his maniacal ramblings as she crawled towards the pills scattered across the room. He kept ruminating about putting a bullet into their brain and in the moments it took her to grab and choke down one of the omega blockers Misty had so thoughtfully procured, she knew that those words were more than a threat – they were a promise.

She shook her head to rid herself go the horrific memories, her fingers shooting towards her temple as pain seared through her brain.  
“Fuck,” she uttered, stumbling towards her wardrobe to finally put on some clothes, a futile attempt at some normalcy. After scarfing down a half-eaten breakfast burrito and some spunky monkey she felt strong enough to get her gear and leave this apartment for a morning coffee that’d hopefully rid her of the constant pain throbbing behind her lids.  
The moment she stepped out the door her phone started ringing, the caller ID appearing in the top left corner of her optics didn’t bode well.   
“Takemura here,” the Arasaka soldier greeted her curtly, surprising her with the casualness of his tone. “We must meet. Come to Tom’s Diner.”  
“Hmm… why would I do that?” she asked, not in the mood to be around people, let alone someone straight from the upper ranks of Arasaka, who’d almost gotten her killed a second time in 24 hours.  
“Because I am the one who saved your life,” he retorted simply and she had to admit to herself that there was some truth in that, after all, the reasons for his change of heart a secret she still had to uncover.  
“Haven’t managed to get my head straight yet,” she dismissed him. “Not after everything that happened.”  
“That will not happen anytime soon,” he lectured her, his tone so jovial it almost made her blood boil. “And so what? If you intend to live, you must re-enter the ring. The bell has already tolled.” She rolled her eyes at his arrogance, ready to just hang up on him.  
“Tom’s Diner. I am waiting,” were his last words before he got ahead of her and ended the call.

“You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me,” she huffed, ready to leave the megabuilding, when a strange graffiti on the wall right next to her apartment caught her eye. It showed a person walking off the roof of a building, a skinny and beaten dog at their feet and the static in the back of her head returned, sending goosebumps across her body. She hurried to scan the unusual motive and decided to ask the most spiritual person she knew about it, positive that Misty would have an idea what to make of it.  
By now the prodding behind her lids reared up to become a raging migraine and V decided that she really needed caffeine – a chance to combine business with pleasure by listening to what Takemura had to say over a fresh cup of coffee.


	3. Arrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that both of their lives are at stake, the former Arasaka soldier and the merc are trying to figure out a way to work together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right now we're still exploring the early stages of Takemura's and V's relationship, their first meeting being the ideal table setter for the upcoming chapters, where I'll allow myself to deviate from the game a little more.
> 
> I really loved their exchange at Tom's Diner with all its details, hope this comes across in those 2000 and odd words.  
> The dialogue mostly belongs to CDPR, I just filled in some blanks.
> 
> Thank you guys for reading, feel free to leave feedback, comments and kudos, it's highly appreciated :)

The mercenary had been hovering in the hallway outside Tom’s Diner for almost half an hour, her eyes trained on Takemura, who sat in the corner booth, both hands wrapped around a mug that contained coffee, probably cold by now.  
He was wearing the same, crisp shirt she’d seen him sport at Vik’s, neatly tucked into charcoal dress pants that fell over brown leather shoes, turning the Arasaka soldier into the best-dressed person in the diner, so obviously a corpo that it made him stick out like a sore thumb.  
Despite being on the run, he looked relaxed, content even, taking the occasional sip of coffee while keeping an eye on his surroundings and she recognized the years of training it had taken him to hide his ever-present vigilance behind this carefully crafted facade of aloofness.  
But a closer look revealed that he was not one to be trifled with, the extensive cyberware embedded in the skin of his face and fingers plus the top-notch Arasaka endoskeleton protecting his throat and sternum posing a warning to everyone who thought about messing with him.  
A wry grin pulled at the corner of her mouth as she remembered the intense sensation of fear trickling down her spine moments after he entered the penthouse at Konpeki Plaza, followed by the corpo-overlord himself – Saburo fuckin’ Arasaka. Her heart leapt into her throat when he casually strolled by the screen with glowing eyes, her interface warning her about the unauthorized scan, and she was certain that they were fucked the second he’d find out that the two petty thieves hiding in there were no match for him.  
  
Ironically enough they were saved by Saburo Arasaka himself, he sent his bodyguard and that fuckin’ creepy-ass tin can Smasher away, despite Takemura’s raised objections and V wondered if Saburo had secretly been planning to rid himself of his wayward son right then and there.  
Questions Takemura might be able to answer, given he was one of Arasaka’s bigger cogs, privy to information on the entire family – she would just have to find an angle with him, something she could give the Arasaka bodyguard in exchange for information on the Relic and it’s removal.  
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, sending a quick prayer to whatever entity was listening, begging it to keep Johnny in check, at least for the duration of this conversation.

***

He sat at his suggested rendezvous, waiting patiently to see if V was giving him the curtesy of showing up at all. Last time he’d seen her she had barely been holding on, her gaze on him hazy and unsteady, but Viktor assured him that she’d be fine and he’d notify him whenever she left his clinic for good. Takemura took another sip of his coffee, trying to fight the overwhelming tiredness, knowing that the exhaustion stemmed from getting through the day without his Arasaka implants. After heavily relying on them for over forty years, he felt vulnerable, powerless and naked, but avoiding detection through Arasaka was more important than creature comforts. He knew that those were the withdrawal symptoms Viktor had warned him about, his newfound weakness a painful reminder of how far he’d truly fallen.  
The past week had been a blur, keeping a low profile while gathering intel was a dire operation, but he was grateful for something resembling a purpose to keep his mind off the situation he now was forced to adapt to.  
So far he’d already found out about the doll that had visited Yorinobu in the penthouse once or twice, Evelyn Parker, originally associated with the Moxes, a gang that neither had quarrels with Arasaka, nor ties to Militech or other corpos for that matter. The Relic was of no use to street gangs, except when turned into Eddies, but moving goods of this magnitude required skill, contacts and discretion – nothing a ragged group of small-time gangbangers could accomplish.  
There had to be someone else behind this heist, someone resourceful who tasked Parker and DeShawn with lifting the Relic from Yorinobu, knowing what to look for and – even more important – where to look for it. No one besides Saburo-sama’s closest confidants, including him, were aware that the Relic had left the company building in Tokyo.  
Maybe that petty thief knew more about the people in the background, and if not, she might have in inkling about where to find that joytoy who’d seemingly dropped off the face of the earth, leaving him with nothing but loose ends.  


He turned his head as soon as he heard footsteps approaching his table, only to find the mercenary standing in front of him, looking like an entirely different person.  
V’s hair fell around her face in soft strands, her gaze was bright and taxing, lips displaying a feisty smugness as she looked down on him. She’d exchanged the ratty corpo-pantsuit for a well-worn yellow biker jacket over a knotted tank with the most tasteless print he’d ever seen, leather-clad legs ended in heeled combat boots and Takemura thought to himself that he liked her better that way, colorful and alive.  
“Sit,” he encouraged her and she slipped into the booth across from him. “You do not look so bad.” A tired smile ghosted across her face as she placed her palms on the surface of the table, waiting for him to continue.  
“Then, in the car, I doubted you would survive,” he said in a low voice, hands clasped around his coffee.  
“Why’d you help me anyway?” she asked, her tone cautious as she leaned back.  
“I needed you to live. That hasn’t changed,” he answered matter-of-factly and he could see that took her a lot of willpower not to roll her eyes at his presumptuous generosity.  
“What’s it you actually want from me?” she asked, her eyes meeting his before he put the cup of coffee aside and folded his hands together.  
“To begin, you must tell me where to find Evelyn Parker,” he said bluntly and she narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious.  
“Evelyn… What’s she to you?” she inquired, her tone low, borderline hostile. He needed to proceed with caution, otherwise she’d clam up, so he decided to put everything out in the open.  
“She and Yorinobu Arasaka had intimate relations… She knows how to get to him.” he said without judgement, the absence of a reaction in V’s face telling him that she was already aware of this.  
“Been thinkin’ I oughta have a word with her myself,” V admitted. “She promised to help me get rid of the chip.”  
“I would not count on that,” Takemura said simply. “She is likely gone, very far away.” He was unsure if the merc got what he was implying, that Arasaka had already traced the failed robbery back to her, meaning that she’d essentially be dead in a ditch by now.

“Why you figure she skipped town?” the merc asked, her arms now crossed in front of her chest.  
“I tried to locate her but had no success. I suspect she covered her tracks.” he answered truthfully, wondering which connections possibly enabled Parker to make such bold promises about the chip. “You said Parker could help you remove the Relic… Does she work for a corporation?”  
Takemura watched V bristle at his assumption at first, but then she reevaluated his words, matched them with all the things she’d found out about Parker during their brief business relationship and drew her own conclusions, which she kept to herself.  
“You ask a looot of questions,” she said with an exasperated expression, letting him know that the peace between them was somewhat temporary.  
“You have many interesting things to say,” he shrugged and attempted to hold her gaze, but she turned away.  
“Might be your turn now to say something interesting,” she retorted languidly.  
“I intend to punish Yorinobu Arasaka severely for the crime he has committed,” he husked, realizing he’d lost her the second those words had left his mouth. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to lose his temper, but it was too late, she was already getting up.

***

V stared at the Arasaka soldier, the sudden realization that retribution was all he was after disappointing her. Her life was on the line, there was no time for petty revenge plans directed at the most influential corporation in the world. She sighed and placed her palm on the table, pushing herself up.  
“Sorry I couldn’t be of any help,” she said curtly. “Don’t have any time to lose, so…”  
She froze the second he got up as well, unable to evade the fingers wrapping around her arm, his gaze fixing hers, that mesmerizing silver ring around his iris glowing.  
With his face this close to hers she could see the wayward stubble strewn across his cheeks, the smudged eyeliner on heavy lids over tired eyes and she realized that they might be on the same side, after all.  
“V, wait.” he rasped, his tone exhausted. “I need you.” The vulnerability in his voice reverberated somewhere deep inside her chest, forming an echo that tugged at her heartstrings and she sat back down. When he told her that Yorinobu had to atone for his insidious crime of patricide she couldn’t help but laugh in his face, knowing that literally no one in Night City gave a flying fuck about the circumstances leading to Saburo Arasakas death.  
“Pff. Lookin’ for justice? In Night City?” she said, unable to ban the amusement from her voice.  
“I seek revenge. Much more feasible here,” was his curt answer and she believed him, understanding that he wanted to see Yorinobu dead, no matter the cost. “I have allies, prepared to bring Yorinobu to his knees. The only thing I need is proof.”  
Oh, she could see where this was going, why he needed her to be alive, what he was about to ask of her and she decided to just cut to the chase.  
“And you think they’ll trust the word of a merc?”  
“I have nothing better now,” he admitted. “Also I know no one here, and I am a fugitive, I am hunted.” At least he was being honest, but there was no way in hell she’d sit in front of Arasaka’s board members, retelling the events of that night hoping to walk off unscathed.  
“What if I say no?” she asked, raising her brow.  
“Then I will tell you what rewards await if you help me.”  
“So what, we stroll into Arasaka HQ and announce that Yorinobu’s a kinkiller? That he murdered Saburo?” she retorted, her tone drunk with sarcasm.  
“We will get a hearing before reasonable people, in a neutral location,” he casually explained. “Certain… procedures will be used to establish the truth.”  
“A lie-detector? Forget it,” she snarked, but he went on about how he was aware that she was dying, running out of time and options to save herself, telling her all the things she already knew.

He tried to goad her into helping him by underlining that the Relic was Arasaka technology after all, turning the corporation into her only remaining hope at recovery, given they managed to get the right people on their side.  
“Exactly what kind of people are we talkin’ about?” she asked, growing increasingly tired of this conversation that seemed to run in circles.  
“People who hold Arasaka dear, are its heart. People interested in the corporation’s stable growth.”  
God, he was such a fiercely loyal dog after all, still worshipping the same corporate overlords who’d kicked him to the curb mere days ago. She sighed, pitying the man sitting across the table, so desperately clinging to the pretend structure, ranks and order that came with capitalism.  
“Ya mean people like Anders Hellman?” she asked, reconciled by his surprised expression.  
He was in the throes of lecturing her about Hellman being a pawn who betrayed Arasaka by simply disappearing off the face of the earth, when the news on a screen in the diner caught his attention.  
Before he was able to gather any information on the current events at Arasaka, Tom switched the channel.  
“Hey! I was listening to that!” Takemura complained, earning him a hateful glance.  
“Shut up. Nobody ‘cept you wants to watch that shit about that corpo cunt.”  
Takemura shot off the seat, towards the counter, fist bunched at his side. “What did you say?!” he growled and V hurried to intervene.  
“Let it go, Takemura,” she rasped, motioning him to sit down again. She watched him bare his teeth at Tom’s remark, the tension so palpable she held her breath, but then he finally turned around and sat down across from her.  
“Last thing we wanna do is draw attention,” she hissed, to which he lowered his head.  
“I’m sorry… a stupid reflex,” he apologized, defeated.  
“Thanks for the offer,” V said, her voice soft. “Need to think about it, get back to you.”  
Takemura went on to tell her about the things she’d stand to gain in case she decided to help him and that Arasaka was her only chance, which she denied, leading to a heated discussion about the two leads they had, Anders Hellman and Evelyn Parker. Takemura told her that he’d tried to talk to the fixer-queen of Night City, Rogue Amendiares, but was sent away, a clever decision on her part, V had to admit, not wanting to fraternize with the alleged murderer of Saburo Arasaka.  
V decided to try tracking either one of them down, to which Takemura replied that he’d visit some friends in order to call in favors, asking her to notify him in case she managed to find Hellman.  
“He and I have unfinished business,” Takemura said, his tone cold, before he left the diner, disappearing in a cloud of glitches that announced Johnny Silverhand’s arrival, much to V’s dismay.

The way he sat down in Takemura’s spot, one leg on the table, droning on about Arasaka made her bristle, but their conversation turned out to be much more civilized than what she’d endured during the first night in her apartment.  
Maybe there was some hope for them after all.


	4. Dark Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With time running through their fingers, V and Takemura set out to work on the leads they've got in a desperate attempt to find leverage against Yorinobu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that we finally enter uncharted territory!  
> I am looking forward to stray from the game's missions a little more, let's see where this takes us.
> 
> There's a rough sketch for the entirety of this fic, the final lenght will be somewhere around 10 chapters I guess, with some angst, action and probably smut to come.
> 
> Feel free to leave feedback, kudos, messages, whatever, I appreciate each and everyone who takes the time to read my stuff :)

The bodyguard walked through the streets of Watson, cautious to blend into his surroundings, when somebody ran into him.  
“Watch where you’re going!” he hissed in Japanese, scowling at the man who apologetically raised his palms and went his way. He thought about how there were too many people in this city, how crowded it was and every fiber of his being wanted to return to the calm quiet of his hideout, when another news broadcast caught his eye. He hurried to step aside, his gaze trained on the screen, announcing the newest developments around the sudden demise of Saburo Arasaka.  
  
 _“… his daughter Hanako Arasaka, heiress to the Arasaka empire is set to arrive here in Night City tomorrow, in order to retrieve the body from the authorities and transfer it to the family compound in Tokyo for the funeral, which will be closed to the public. So far we were not able to get a statement on the circumstances surrounding the unexpected passing of Saburo Arasaka, who has been the head of Arasaka for over a century. His son Yorinobu Arasaka is currently staying in his heavily guarded residence in North Oak, his representatives still declining to talk to the press. However we will…”  
_  
Takemura turned away, pleased with the information he’d just received. He knew that there was no way in hell he could reach Yorinobu, who was busy pulling strings and tying up loose ends, hiding in his fortress like the coward he was, but Hanako-samas arrival sparked the feeling of hope inside his chest, knowing that her bodyguard would be at her side, giving him the ever so slight chance to get to her in order to clear his name.

***

Talking with those people had tired her, so V slipped out the backdoor, right after she’d said goodbye to Mamá Welles, and walked over to Jackie’s garage again. He’d never told her that he moved out his family home right after she’d scored her apartment in the Megabuilding H10, but by then both of them had been so busy with jobs that they barely found the time to talk about anything else but gigs.  
She sighed, but the sadness weighing on her chest wouldn’t subside, so she opened the roller shutter and stepped inside the garage, not surprised to find Misty still around, curled up on the couch, holding one of his shirts close to her chest.  
V lingered in the door to his bedroom, eyes on the crooked sand mandala.  
“Hey Misty,” she said softly.  
“Oh hey V,” Misty breathed before she sat up. “How was the _ofrenda_?”  
“Beautiful,” V replied, her tone rough. “And devastating. Seeing all those people who cared about him hurt this much…” Her voice caught in her throat. “You were on to something, staying here.” A crooked smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “How have you been holding up?”  
“I just took some time to say my goodbyes,” Misty answered, the shirt still in her lap. “Felt right this time, the connection to his spirit was strong enough for me to finally let him go.”  
“Feel free to come back whenever you need to,” V said, placing the key to the garage in the middle of the mandala. “Mamá Welles don’t need to know.”  
“Thank you, V,” Misty replied, tears shimmering in her eyes. “What are you going to do now?”  
“I’m just here to pick up his Arch,” V answered. “Mamá Welles just gave her to me.”  
“He always wanted you to have that bike,” Misty smiled. “He used to say _‘Chica, you know my heart is yours, but if I check out before my time, that bike has to go to V’_.” She laughed a little. “Kept sayin’ you were the only one of his chooms who’d appreciate the fine craftsmanship of that bike the way he did.”  
“This means a lot to me, Misty,” V husked, swallowing hard. “Gonna see you around.”  
She retreated from the bedroom and walked over to Jackie’s Arch Nazare, admiring the bold and somewhat tacky Valetinos custom paint job before a small detail made her heart stumble inside her chest.  
On one of their last jobs together they’d discussed his new ride and she’d given him shit about his tailpipe being too loud, announcing his arrival from miles away, to find out now that he’d taken her advice to heart and modded the exhaust pipes.  
“Oh Jackie,” she sighed, running her palm over the stitched leather seat before she grabbed the handlebars and pushed the motorbike into the ally, towards the street.  
She was almost there, when an unmistakeable ring announced an incoming message, prompting her to open the interface.  
With brows arched in confusion she read the text attached to a picture, taken in one of the grimier corners of the docks.

“The fox is cautious. It shall emerge when it is sure that the water was not poisoned?” she muttered, half-heartedly thinking someone was just messing with her for the hell of it, when it finally dawned on her.  
 ** _Takemura…?_** she replied, now certain that those messages were indeed sent by him.  
 ** _Amateur merc. Yes, this is Takemura._** he promptly replied, his arrogant tone pissing her off once again.  
 ** _I am using a burner via secure connection, but I figured it would be best to use the secret code I created.  
I suspected it might be beyond your abilities…  
_**She scoffed at his condescending tone and exited the conversation, only to receive three additional messages.  
**_Meet me at the docks on Channel St, Japantown,_** she read. **_Come at night. If nobody has followed you, I will show myself.  
I trust this was understood? Not too complicated?  
_** She was already having a shit day, and Takemura patronizing her just added insult to injury, leaving her fuming in the alley.  
 ** _Gonna “show” yourself or what?_** she riled. **_This part of the code?_** _  
_He reacted immediately. ** _There is a saying in your country… One moment, it will come to me… Ah, now I remember!  
_** She wondered what he’d come up with, when another ring notified her about his answer and she had to laugh out loud for the first time in what felt like weeks, reading the three words, written in capital letters: **_GO FUCK YOURSELF._** _  
_“Damn, Takemura,” she grinned. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”  
She exited the interface and swung her leg over the bike, the engine coming to live with a deep, satisfying rumble and she decided to follow the only lead she got so far: the BD-editor working for the Moxes.

The talk with Judy had been a short, but informative one, leaving her with something resembling a lead on Evelyn’s whereabouts. V knew she should be relieved, happy even, but all she could think about was Jackie and that fuckin’ busted heist, so she needed to clear her head. A long drive all the way up to the columbarium in North Oak should do the trick and if that didn’t help, she had one more place to visit to take her mind off of things.

“Hey choom,” she said quietly, leaning against the concrete columbarium structure, welcoming the cool sensation on her back after her lenghty ride through the sun. “Gotta say I was surprised to find out you’d moved out to live in your garage, but I get it, you just wanted to stare at that fuckin’ bike 24/7.” A wry laugh left her lips. “I promise I’ll take the best care of her.” She wiped away a stray tear and inhaled shakily.  
“Took Misty with me to check out your digs, you shoulda seen her face when she discovered that crooked sand mandala you made,” V clicked her tongue. “Man, she really loved you, don’t know if you ever realized how much, actually. She misses you, spends her days sittin’ next to the garage for hours on end, so I passed the key Mamá gave me on to her, hope that’s okay.” She stepped away from the concrete, her eyes on the inscription Mamá Welles had chosen for her youngest son.  
“Fuck, Jackie,” she sighed. “That night at Konpeki Plaza set some shit in motion – you wouldn’t believe,” she mimicked her head exploding. “Kinda could need your sage advice right now, you know, some tough love to set my head straight.” She looked up and down the aisle, suddenly awkwardly aware of the fact that she was talking to a pile of ashes in a concrete box.  
“Anyway, gotta go, still got some stuff to mull over,” she said, bumping her fist against the headstone. “Miss ya, choom, see you soon.”  
She left the columbarium and noticed that the sun had already begun to set, so if she wanted to make it in time, she’d have to hurry.

V parked the bike right next to the wall, wondering if there’d always been this much trash strewn across the sidewalk, when her phone alerted her about another incoming message. She rolled her eyes and opened the interface, surprised to find something resembling an apology, sent by Takemura.  
“You fuckin’ gonk,” she mumbled, a smile ghosting across her lips as she walked over to the other side of the Petrochem dam, the one with the breathtaking view of the city. V rested her elbows on the banister and dialed his number, giving in to her sudden urge to speak to another living, breathing human being.  
“V,” he answered almost immediately. “I did not expect your call.”  
“Hey,” she croaked, glad to see he wasn’t one to hold a grudge.  
“I take it that you accept my apology,” he concluded, raising one of his brows.  
“Don’t worry about it,” V huffed. “My snarky comment was kinda uncalled for, too, so…” She shrugged. “Just caught me at a shit time.”  
He looked at her, his expression unusually warm, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.  
“I am glad to hear you did not take my outburst to heart,” he rasped.  
“Honestly, you goin’ off on me like that made me laugh out loud for the first time in a while,” she retorted with a crooked grin.  
“You have a twisted sense of humor, V,” Takemura sighed.  
“Kinda mandatory when you don’t wanna lose your spirits while living on borrowed time,” she joked half-heartedly.  
“If you want to talk about anything, I will listen,” the Arasaka soldier said simply, his earnest compassion triggering emotions she’d shoved into the deepest, darkest corners of her mind and she was surprised to feel tears pricking behind her lids.  
“It’s just… fuck,” she carelessly dragged her sleeve across her eyes. “We held an _ofrenda_ for Jackie today and it hit me harder than I expected.” V sniffled and eyed Takemura, who listened intently.  
“A few friends brought keepsakes they connected with Jackie for his altar, said some nice words about him…” a shaky breath escaped her lips.  
“What was the memento you chose for him?” Takemura inquired.  
“A book,” V answered, realizing just now that she’d indeed seen it before, stashed into the duffle bag he’d brought with him on their first job together, all the way out to the badlands. “Hemingway’s ‘For whom the bell tolls’, classic American war literature. He always read it on the days leading up to his biggest gigs, a tradition I might pick up too, there was for sure some wisdom in those pages.”  
“A well considered choice,” Takemura agreed.  
“The world lost a good one there…” V breathed. “Tough guy, roughly hewn face, ballsy demeanor. Didn’t look like it, but deep inside all he cared about were the one’s dear to his heart.” She felt the pressure on her chest subside with every word she said, grateful for Takemura, who listened without judgement.  
“Did you know he originally slotted the shard after the cryocase got damaged during our escape?” she continued, her tone suddenly bitter. “Didn’t even think about it twice, just tried to keep the whole gig from going sideways.”  
The mercenary pushed herself up from the banister and started pacing.  
“When he realized that he was dying, he took it out and handed it to me, asked me to hold on to it, for him,” by now she didn’t even care about the tears rolling down her face anymore. “And all I do is ask myself, could the Relic have saved his life, just like it did for me? I should’ve never taken it from him.”  
“This is a question I have no answer for,” Takemura said softly. “But by giving you that shard, he gave you a second chance at life. Best way to honor him is by not wasting it.”  
“Thank you,” V rasped. “I needed this.” She dried her tears and walked over to her bike. “Gotta go now, got a lead regarding Parker’s whereabouts,” she said, already sitting on her Arch. “I’ll let you know what comes off it. Keep your head down Takemura, we’ll talk soon.” 

***

Takemura sighed deeply after V had ended the call, it had pained him to see her in this amount of distress, which left him wondering about his new-found feeling of compassion towards the petty thief. But he had no time to dwell on this issue with his ringing phone demanding his undivided attention, the obscured caller ID sparking a faint tingling sensation in the back of his neck before he answered the call.  
Cold eyes partly hidden beneath long strands of jet black hair appeared in the top left corner of his interface, the expression of the caller calm, a sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  
“Oda,” Takemura rasped, barely able to ban the tiredness from his voice.  
“Takemura-san,” his former protege greeted him, sticking to the imperative honorifics. “I hope you are aware what you are asking of me.”  
“I am,” Takemura retorted curtly. “And I do not plan to waste your time. I have found one of the thieves involved in the heist at Konpeki Plaza, she is alive, ready to give her testimony.”  
“Yorinobu deemed you to be Saburo-sama’s murderer!” Oda hissed, narrowing his eyes. “Every Arasaka agent in Night City is looking for you.”  
“I am well aware of that,” Takemura retorted, shrouding himself in his aura of calm confidence, despite the looming feeling of fear digging its sharp claws deep inside his chest. “Hanako-sama needs to hear what we have got to say.”  
“I will not risk Hanako-sama’s life by agreeing to bring her to a meeting with a disgraced soldier and a petty thief, one of them her father’s killer!” Oda growled and Takemura realized that they were entirely at his mercy.  
“Your attendance will suffice,” the older bodyguard rebutted. “Hear us out, then decide if you deem the information worthy to be given to Hanako-sama.”  
Oda averted his gaze, a sigh leaving his lips.  
“Name a place and a time and I will be there,” the younger soldier gave in. “Don’t make me regret granting you this courtesy, Takemura-san.”  
“I will not,” Takemura promised before he ended the call.


	5. Amulet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takemura and V are looking for help among their contacts, carefully trying to figure out who is friend or foe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this was one of my favorite Takemura missions in the game with a dialogue too good to pass it up.  
> Oda and his thinly-veiled threats are a mood.

Takemura stood in the shadows, closely watching V, who sat on a concrete banister, fidgeting with what looked like some kind of amulet to him, tossing and turning it between her fingers. She seemed stressed, like something was occupying her mind, keeping her from focussing on her surroundings, so he spend a few extra minutes surveilling the area, making sure she hadn’t been followed.  
Sometimes her blatant ignorance angered him, maybe it was the carelessness of youth, he pondered – the both of them still had a lot to lose after all. She held out her finger, the token dangling on a chain from it and he suddenly recognized the bullet Viktor had pulled from her skull the day he’d saved her from the landfill. A smile ghosted across his lips, realizing that she probably carried it with her as a reminder of her own mortality, a lucky charm to keep her grounded and he felt his anger vanish. An unexpected sensation of affection surged inside his chest as he watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze wandering across the shadows and he hurried to squash it before he finally stepped over to talk to her.  
  
“It is good to see you, V,” he rasped, meaning every word of it, she was the only friendly face in a hostile city after all.  
“Seems pretty… uh… secluded here,” she retorted, wariness in her voice.  
“It is appropriate for such a secret meeting,” he said simply, staring at the river in front of him, wondering how things would go with Oda. “Have you found out anything about Parker?”  
“I was about to check out her place of employment, some swanky club called Clouds, but then you summoned me here, so…” she shrugged.  
“It was not my intention to keep you from your task at hand,” Takemura apologized, leaning on the banister.  
“Don’t worry about it,” she shushed him, before she proceeded to inquire about his past days, commenting on his awful looks and for a split second he considered telling her, how trying the last few weeks had been, how homesick he felt, how much he longed for even the smallest comforts of his former life. Instead he turned his answer into yet another lesson, letting her know that climbing the higher levels of society’s hierarchy always held the possibility of an even deeper fall. She just rose her brow at him and stayed silent as he went on about how this gave him the advantage of moving through Night City undetected.  
V placed her hands on the banister, impatient and antsy, asking about his friend.  
“Oda? He should be here any moment now,” he answered curtly, but she kept pushing, pressing for background infos. “He is Hanako-sama’s bodyguard.”  
She just stared at him blankly, slowly shaking her head, pissed at him for keeping her in the dark about meeting with Hanako Arasaka’s ‘errand boy’, knowing that he might sell the both of them out in a heartbeat.  
“He will not do that. He is a man of honor,” was his firm reply, but he knew she was right, even if he refused to believe that Oda would dare to betray his teacher so blatantly, the possibility remained. Their quarrel about honor was cut short by the arrival of a black car, the bodyguard felt relief, knowing that Oda could’ve also arrived camouflaged, backed by an army of Arasaka soldiers. Not that he would need them, being the efficient cyberninja he was, but seeing him actually keeping his promises gave him at least a little hope that things might go their way.  
  
He turned around to watch his former student exit the car and walk over to them, corporate from head to toe in his black suit as he stopped and stood at attention, his hands folded in front of his body. The feeling of inadequacy and degradation stung and Takemura did his best to hide his emotions from Oda’s cold and calculated gaze as he faced him. Oda reconciled by greeting Takemura with the utmost respect, gently bowing to the technically superior soldier.  
“Oda,” he grunted, feeling V shift her weight behind him, bristling at Oda calling her a thief.  
“She is my witness. V,” he hurried to say, shooting her a warning glance.  
“Can speak for myself, you know,” she snarked before directly turning to Oda, portraying the events in a bluntness that made even Takemura uneasy.  
“Silence. Not one word more," Oda warned her, his tone threatening. “You will bring death to you door.”  
Alarmed by the sudden hostility, Takemura moved, instinctively shielding V with his frame as he tried to appease Hanako’s bodyguard, persuade him into letting V talk to her, but Oda unambiguously put him in his place, letting him know that they both were – in fact – at his mercy.  
“My only concern is to keep her safe in this city forgotten by the gods,” he scoffed.  
“Is she in danger?” Takemura asked, worried that Yorinobu had somehow uncovered his carefully devised plan.  
“Now? No,” Oda replied sardonically. “Yet during the parade to honor Arasaka-sama? Most certainly.”  
Takemura snorted, amused by the simplemindedness of his former student. Here he stood, uncovering the biggest internal coup Arasaka had ever seen, outclassing even the Night City holocaust in 2023, a mishap that cost Arasaka months and billions to obliterate from the companies history and all he worried about was a parade.  
“I bring you this witness to his murder. And you dare to worry about a silly parade?” Takemura taunted him. “Fool!”  
“Correct. Unlike you, I have not yet failed to keep my oath to my duty,” the younger soldier retorted, twisting the knife in a wound still so fresh that Takemura bared his teeth.  
“You will regret those words!” he growled, moving in on his protege.  
“The only thing I regret is that I came here to meet you,” Oda replied, his tone jovial. “There is a price on your head! I do you a favor by not cutting it off and taking it straight to Yorinobu-sama. What would you do now that you were in my place?”  
“I do no favors,” Takemura said, his voice low. “I would deliver your head to Yorinobu-sama.”  
“Consider yourself lucky that I am not you,” Oda said quietly.

The mercenary still sat on the cold concrete, getting more and more annoyed by the pissing contest between the two Arasaka soldiers in front of her, both of them uttering thinly veiled threats at one another, wasting time she didn’t have.  
“Oda!” V intercepted their showdown by jumping off the banister. “We’re talkin’ about a guy who killed his father to seize control of Arasaka! Gonna take an interest in this or not?”  
Takemura stared at her, brows furrowed over a serious gaze, so obviously shocked about her brazenness and disregard of common curtesy.  
“I will not,” was Oda’s cold reply before he turned to leave, not without letting them know that he’d not spare them a second time. She could see the defeat plastered all over Takemura’s face before he appealed to Oda one last time, his voice suddenly so soft and forgiving that – for the first time since she’d met him – V had the feeling she’d secretly caught a glimpse of the real Goro, not Takemura, the trained soldier and assassin.  
“Be very careful, my friend,” the former bodyguard said. “We are all so far from home.”  


A burst of electric blue fragments in her field of vision announced Johnny’s return and there he was – the ever present background commentary to everything happening in her life.  
“Good fuckin’ riddance,” he griped. “One Arasaka whack job is already plenty.” To which V sighed with exasperation, knowing full well that Johnny was onto something.  
“Fine friend there,” she vented her anger, glowering at the bodyguard. “Got any more?”  
“Alas, only him,” Takemura retorted, his voice flat and tired, making her regret her outburst immediately.  
“Well, we can’t say we didn’t try,” she shrugged and watched her companion pace in front of his van.  
“We tried, yes, and obtained something useful…” he said mysteriously.  
“Hm, how do you figure that?” V scoffed, rolling her eyes at him. She barely listened to his explanation, distracted by a gigantic sculpture of a wolf’s head being shipped behind them, a particularly grim omen in her books.  
“Do you not see, the parade?” Takemura concluded. “It is our chance, perhaps."  
He then went on about proper reconnaissance and the need for plans of Japan Town, her attention with him again when he prompted her to call on her friends, a fixer who could help them out.  
“Know just the fixer dame,” she grinned, thinking of that old snake Wakako and her gambling empire. “Wakako Okada, runs a pachinko parlor on Jig-Jig Street.”  
“We must pay this woman a visit,” Takemura grumbled, readying himself to get going. “Will you join me?"  
“Jig-Jig Street, that’s more like it,” Johnny cheered, leaning on the back of Takemura’s van. “Maybe we’ll find the time to take one of the joytoys for a spin, it has been decades since I last got some…”  
 _“Will you shut the hell up?”_ V scolded him. _“My – actually, no –_ our _life is on the line and all you can think about is shoving you dick into the next best hole?”  
_ “One of us clearly needs to unwind,” Johnny countered. “And it is not me.”  
 _“I am not gonna fuck some joytoy with you hanging around so have something to jerk off to!”_ she hissed.  
“Could also put you in the backseat,” Johnny quipped. “But suit yourself, I’m gonna tag along anyway, for the visuals, you know?”  
“Sure, why not,” V huffed, stepping over to the passenger side, ready for a detour through Night Cities red light district.

“Ji-Ji Street… what is this name?” the former bodyguard asked, steering his van towards the street.  
“Just a Night City name,” V countered with a grin, waving him off.  
“Beware – you mock me… too often,” Takemura warned her, trying to rein in her careless brazenness that almost cost the both of them their heads, given he’d read Oda’s reaction right. The moment he witnessed the hostile glint in his former trainees gaze, he’d felt a fear so intense his breath caught in his lungs for a second. Oda never posed a threat to him, knowing full well that he was still faster and better trained than the younger soldier, but he wasn’t sure this also applied to V. He’d seen her fight under dire circumstances, but Oda was something else entirely, a cyberninja, trained to kill and Takemura decided right then and there, that if Oda wanted V dead, he would have to go through him first.  
“You alright, Goro?” V asked and his heart skipped a beat, the sudden intimacy almost too much for him to bear. He couldn’t recall the last time someone called him by his first name, but since V was not someone who cared about social graces and honorifics, her casualness shouldn’t surprise him, but here he was, caught off guard, fighting to regain control over the mess that was his life while handling that petty thief gone wild. He sighed deeply.  
“Yes, why the sudden concern?”  
“Uh, just asking?” she replied with one of her feisty grins. “Does everything with you have to have an ulterior motive?”  
Touched by her genuine interest in his state of mind, he hurried to explain his reaction.  
“I apologize, that came out wrong,” he said, his voice hollow and tired. “I, ehm… I am simply not used to such questions. People like me – either we are doing well, or we are in a grave.”  
“Ugh, that’s fuckin’ bleak, you know?” V groaned, shifting her weight in the seat. “Got another question for you, Goro: What the fuck is that ‘music’ you got going on here?!”  
He saw her air quoting the word music and he smiled wryly as he witnessed the confused expression on her face.  
“This is what people call Jazz,” he said, his voice low. “Music for the connoisseur.”  
“Oh my god, do you even listen to what you’re saying?” she uttered in pretend shock. “This noise is gonna give me a fuckin’ stroke before we make it to Jig-Jig Street.”  
“You know there used to be clubs solely dedicated to listening to Jazz music over a, what do you call it, _stiff_ drink?” Takemura told her. “They were popular during the last century, up until the early two thousands.”  
“This explains a lot, old boy,” she mocked him, once again, her interface already working to change the station. “We are living in 2077 and _this_ is the music of the future.”  
She leaned back, obviously very pleased with herself, as some insufferable noise blasted from the van’s stereo and Takemura couldn’t help but wonder how he ended up with this strange creature sitting next to him.

Jig-Jig Street turned out to be just another filthy corner of Night City he wished to obliterate from his memory the second he set foot in it. So-called joytoys lingering in every corner, offering sexual services with their pretend sensual voices that reeked of desperation to everyone who listened closely and he hurried to move through the cacophony of voices, moans and music.  
V trotted a few feet behind him, seemingly unbothered by all the sexual innuendos thrown at her and he wondered if this was the bluntness that came with growing up in an environment like Night City.  
He stopped and lingered in the entrance of the pachinko parlor, waiting for V, when he noticed an elderly man sitting on a lawn chair inspecting him closely.  
“I may not be good with names,” the man uttered, his eyes trained on the bodyguard. “But I do have quite the talent for faces! Where have I seen yours before?” Takemura crossed his arms in front if his chest, and indifferent expression on his face as he deliberately ignored the remarks.  
“On the TV…?” the man mumbled and the soldier felt a tingling sensation at the base of his skull, knowing full well that his face had been plastered on screens all around the city as Arasaka’s most wanted.  
“Very unlikely,” he growled, relieved to see V coming over.  
“But of course! Hideshi Hino, the man, the legend – in the flesh!” the old man exclaimed with joy, just as V stopped right next to them, the shit-eating grin on her face spelling trouble.  
“Do you know who this is?” the old man asked her enthusiastically. “Hideshi Hino! The late-night comedy host! He was brilliant before he fell off the wagon!”  
Takemura was horrified to see it widen even more as she turned towards the elderly man.  
“Can you still do your famous, “BETTER BUCKLE UP!””, the man begged and V shifted her weight from one foot to the other, a mischievous glint in her gaze, the Arasaka soldier rolled his eyes, realizing where this was going.  
“No!” he husked, much to the dismay of V and the senior citizen.  
“Come on, you don’t forget a thing like that!” the old man pestered him. “Just once, please!”  
“V? We should go in. Now.” the soldier grumbled in a desperate attempt to escape the situation, but she cocked her head and crossed her arms in front of her chest, letting him know that she’d not let him off the hook that easily.  
“Hideshi, don’t leave this poor guy hangin’,” she gleefully demanded.  
“This is not the best time, truly,” Takemura tried to argue, but he knew he was fighting a losing battle.  
“Oh come on!” the elderly man chimed in. “I haven’t heard it in years!”  
The Arasaka soldier groaned and rolled his eyes at V’s tenacity before he steeled himself, uttered an uninspired “BETTER BUCKLE UP!”, and watched the mercenary smile so candidly, contrasting the look of utter despair in the elderly man’s frozen expression.  
“Wow…” V exclaimed, unable to keep her face straight.  
“Hino-san… what happened to you?” the old man asked in a concerned tone.  
“I do not know. I do not recognize myself,” Takemura replied, directing his words towards V. “Are you happy? May we go?”  
“Fine, let’s go,” she said, finally releasing him.  
“Hideshi Hino… To have fallen so far… Such a shame,” were the last words he heard from the old man, which kept V snickering all the way to Wakako’s backoffice.


	6. Colossus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While coming up with a plan on how to get to Hanako, Takemura and V get to know each other a little better – much to Johnny's chagrin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love everything about their recon mission, but listening to Takemura's stories about his childhood was something else.

V sat on her couch, a barely eaten buck-a-slice pizza in her lap, still trying to wrap her head around everything that had happened to Evelyn, the horror of that russian scav BD hell making her shiver hours later. Sure, she’d been furious with the doll for dragging her into this mess in the first place, but as soon as she found out that Evelyn had been decommissioned at Clouds and pawned off to a sketchy ripperdoc residing in the back of Jig-Jig street, she’d called Judy.  
Their investigation led them to an abandoned power plant all the way over in Charter Hill, where they finally found Evelyn, badly beaten, in a catatonic state, barely hanging on to live.  
The image of the doll’s frail body curled up on Judy’s bed haunted her and she wondered if Evelyn could ever recover from the unspeakable trauma she must’ve had endured or if she’d become just another one of Night City’s lost souls.  
Staring at the TV, which was more background noise than anything else, she grabbed another slice of pizza when a soft ping announced an incoming message.  


**_GOOD YAKITORI NIGHT CITY,_** she read while chewing.  
 ** _TEMPURA NIGHT CITY CHEAP  
UDON NIGHT CITY  
TASTY RAMEN  
Is there anything to eat in this wasteland?_  
**A soft smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as she hurried to reply.  
 ** _Goro, you can’t find anything because you’re sending your searches to me as messages!!!_** she wrote, still amused by his charming ineptitude around technology that was not embedded into his body.  
 ** _I apologize, it is this cursed interface… Or a virus._** he answered, trying to save himself but she was just so grateful for his unintentionally hilarious ways of communicating with her, that she felt like giving him a few pointers. She dialed his number and handed the call off to her holo, while she kept eating her lukewarm meal.  
“V,” he greeted her with his gravelly voice.  
“Hey, Goro,” she said softly. “Still no luck on the food front?”  
“Everything tastes like it is made out of sawdust and plastic,” he grumped. “Unacceptable.”  
“I don’t know what kind of swanky food you were accustomed to all the way back in Tokyo, but eating preem stuff while living on a budget is almost impossible in Night City,” V laughed. “Better get used to the subpar street food here.”  
“Almost impossible?” he scoffed. “I have yet to find something that does not make me want to throw it away after the first bite.”  
“I mean you could also drop by and I’ll take you out to dinner,” V blurted out, her heart suddenly picking up pace as she awaited her friend’s answer.  
“You are eating right now,” Takemura remarked dryly and her hand moving the mushy piece of pizza towards her mouth froze mid air.  
“Yeah, that doesn’t count,” V argued, dropping the slice back into the container. “C’mon Goro, I know just the place.”  
“It is very kind of you to offer,” the bodyguard responded, his tone mellow. “But I will manage to find something to eat.”  
“Fine,” she breathed, deflating under his friendly, but persistent refusal.  
“I have gathered some intel on the parade,” he continued. “Let us meet at the street market in Japantown tomorrow, we can discuss our options – and grab something to eat, if you insist.”  
A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Take the elevator, it is easy to get lost.”  
“Sounds like a plan,” V agreed, appeased by his thoughtful offer. “Stay safe, Goro, I’ll see you soon.”  
“Until then, V,” he husked and then ended the call.

V leaned into her couch, her mind wandering to her first few weeks in Night City. She remembered how overwhelmed she’d been, stuck between skyscrapers, wandering streets filled with people to the brim, light and noises an ever-present baseline to the city – a stark contrast to the vast emptiness and silence she was used to after growing up in the badlands, where you could still see the stars at night.  
Hadn’t it been for Jackie, she’d completely lost her mind during the first week, but he knew all the people, places and best parts of the city, generously sharing his knowledge with her while he introduced her to NC’s fixer and merc network.  
Knowing exactly how Takemura felt right now, she just wanted to return the favor, but he was too damn stubborn and proud to accept her help, a fact that pissed her off more than she cared to admit.

***

She found the soldier on the footbridge, just like he’d said, talking to two police officers.  
“Goro, good to see you,” she greeted him as she joined the group.  
“As it is to see you, V,” he rasped, nodding at the officer before he turned away and gestured V to follow him. “I acquired some information on my own.”  
“Do you know who most wished to honor Arasaka-sama with this parade?” he rambled on. “His murderer. The irony makes me sick.” He stopped and rested his elbows on a railing, facing the urban canyon spreading beneath them.  
“What’s in it for Yorinobu?” V asked, her eyes on the soldier. “Doesn’t seem like the kind who’d care to honor tradition.” to which he replied that his Japanese heritage was just a front to hide his real intentions: sending a message to his foes by demonstrating his power.  
“What message’d that be?” the merc huffed.  
“I am here _gumin-domo_. Watch you backs,” he replied, swearing in his native language a small detail that made V grin.  
“Not one for subtlety, is he?” the mercenary assessed. “Still don’t see how this gets us anywhere.”  
“I have had an idea,” the soldier said simply. “Look to the sky.” V craned her neck, eyes at the white square of light hovering above their heads, while Takemura explained that he’d just need to get onto Hanako Arasaka’s float.  
“Get there how?” V asked, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.  
“Why, jump, of course,” Goro stated matter-of-factly, to which she scoffed in return.  
“This is fuckin’ suicide,” she argued. “Expectation’s way too high, Goro. Couldn’t pull that off even if you still had your fancy implants.”  
He turned around to face her, still resting against the railing, his expression suddenly somewhat cocky.  
“I have thought of a solution,” he said, his gaze holding hers. “While you were occupied with your shady dealings, I learned more about the floats. They are all kept in one place – Arasaka Industrial Park. It is there that they prepare them. We need only to break into the compound, find the right float and inject a virus into its system.”  
“Did you just say we _only_ need to break into the compound?” V echoed weakly.  
“You will be the one to enter, while I will watch your back,” Takemura explained.  
“Why’s the dirty work my job?” the mercenary argued.  
“It is not like I can walk in there myself,” the bodyguard shrugged. “I know what you need. It is taken care of. I have an infected shard.”  
“Guess that settles it,” V griped before she held out her hand, waiting for Takemura to place the shard in her palm.  
“To break into Arasaka Industrial Park will not be such a “bed of roses”,” he assessed as he walked past her, and V rolled her eyes at his condescending tone. “But before we discuss that… Sit, I have not eaten since yesterday.”  
  
While lounging at the food stand, she felt the static trickle in the back of her head, artifacts clouding her vision and Johnny appeared, leaning on the structure.  
“Can’t believe I’m sayin’ this, but this ‘Saka scum might actually prove useful,” he thought out loud. “He’s a well-trained dog – just needs orders, that’s all. And when he outlives his purpose, we’ll flatline him.”  
 _“You got no idea what you’re talkin’ about,”_ V retorted. _“He’s ‘Saka scum’ to you, I know that, but Goro’s not a bad guy.”_  
“Not a bad guy?!” Johnny echoed. “He was Saburo Arasaka’s bodyguard! Think his pretty eyes landed him that gig?”, his words causing V to choke on her yakitori.  
 _“Don’t say shit like that!”_ she scolded Johnny, barely listening to Takemura laying out his plan, suddenly uncomfortably aware of his silver gaze resting on her face. Sure, her thoughts had gone there before, there was something about Goro, the way he held himself, the sheer amount of pride and determination he displayed…  
 _Goddammit, Johnny!_ she thought the second that fuckin’ leech dissolved into thin air.  
“Now we part,” Goro husked, pulling her from her thoughts. “Reconnaissance is required.”  
“You’re a stranger in a strange land,” she hurried to say. “Goin’ with you.”  
“Hmm, true,” the bodyguard pondered. “And you with your hands, skills, mind of a thief… Agreed, this we will do together.”

***

It had been a long day and an even longer night _,_ but an operation of this magnitude needed proper reconnaissance and he’d been pleased that V had joined him for the arduous task, making the wait just a little less dull. They’d taken turns with keeping an eye on the compound and a few hours before dawn the merc had finally agreed to rest for a bit. Takemura found himself staring at V’s face, the soft morning light illuminating her delicate features. She looked so peaceful, leaning against the concrete structure, sitting cross-legged on the stacked sacks of cement that he decided not to disturb her in her slumber.  
Her health condition had been worrying him, the extensive coughing fits followed by dizzy spells seemed to be connected to the Relic still stuck in her head, although she said otherwise. V insisted that she didn’t need any help but he could at least persuade her to stay put while he went to get something to eat for the both of them, because just like he’d warned her before, all the talk about food had made them hungry.

His eyes wandered from her full brows arched over closed lids with dark lashes to her petite nose sprinkled with faint freckles and then on to her full lips, curled into a slight smile and for a split second he wondered what they would feel like underneath his fingertips, his stomach dropping at the notion.  
He let out a soft growl, desperate to banish those intrusive thoughts from his mind when a faint meow caught his attention. Takemura turned his head only to find a sphynx cat sitting on the concrete structure across from them, cleaning itself without a care in the world.  
  
A weak cough left V’s lips and the soldier’s gaze snapped back to her the moment she opened her eyes.  
“V,” he urged her, eyeing the cat again.  
“What?” she rasped, muffling the following coughs.  
“No sudden movements. Do you see it?” he asked, feeling her questioning gaze on the back of his head. “The cat.”  
He propped his arm on his knee and studied the naked cat, which he realized was the first animal he’d seen in Night City.  
“Fine-lookin’ feline,” V acknowledged, her voice still thick with sleep. “Thought they’d all disappeared from the city.” He turned his head to face her, surprised by the softness in her gaze, her fondness for that bony creature so deep and honest that it moved something inside of him.  
“It is the first animal I see in Night City,” Takemura remarked. “Except cockroaches, of course.”  
“First it was birds, then dogs,” V explained, admiration in her tone. “Cats actually put up a fight longest.”  
“Perhaps it is a bakeneko?” the bodyguard allowed himself some cautious superstition, remembering some of the tales his grandmother used to tell him when he was still a kid.  
“A ‘bakeneko’? What’s that?” V asked him.  
“It is a cat spirit,” he answered. “It brings misfortune, can restore the dead back to life.”  
V gave him a wry grin. “Believe in ghosts?” she countered and he noticed the hint of amusement in her voice.  
“The Relic lets you talk to the dead, does it not?” he retorted. “I believe we are past belief.”  
A sudden yearning for the comforts of his home country surged inside his chest, so deep and painful it caught I’m off guard.  
“My grandmother knew many, many stories about kitsune, kappa – bakeneko, too,” he husked, and before he realized it, that personal detail had slipped past his defenses and he felt V’s attention shift to him.  
“Where’d you grow up, anyway?” she inquired, and he looked at her, finding nothing but earnest interest in her expression. He shook his head and shifted his weight on the sack he sat on, unwelcome memories of his life as a street kid flooding in. He stared at the Arasaka warehouse for a good amount of time, debating whether or not he should reveal more about his upbringing.  
“I am from the slums of Chiba-11,” he admitted, half-heartedly wondering if revealing he wasn’t born and bred corpo would change anything between them. “Once, when I was desperate to leave there, I…” he went on, but then stopped himself, ashamed that he had considered joining the Yakuza in an attempt at creating a better life for himself, his family.  
“Egh, bad memories washed away by time,” he rasped, still unable to look at V. “I long only for the simple days of childhood.” Takemura fell silent, his eyes now on the cat.

“My childhood, let’s see…” V pondered. “Racin’ my bobber for the first time trough the hills…”  
The bodyguard looked at the merc, whose face softened as she recalled her teenage years, told him about her first kiss in the synth cornfields, sitting on an abandoned railroad tower during a cloud burst in the middle of summer, a sky so clear you could see millions of stars sprinkled across the bruise-blue horizon and he felt her yearning for the comforts of her former home in the badlands reverberate deep inside his own chest.  
“I remember the chemical stench of the canal where we boys washed our shirts,” he told her absentmindedly. “Corporate transporters sometimes passed through our slum. Arasaka selecting children – but only the clean ones.” and V immediately understood what he was implying.  
“When they chose me, I felt I had won the lottery,” he said, knowing just how lucky he’d been to escape the all-encompassing depravity of the slums of Chiba-11. By now, most of his childhood friends had either died in the dirt or been killed in gang quarrels, and a part of him still wondered if Harumi, the girl he’d once loved as a young boy, had ever made it out.  
“So how’s a corpo rookie go from cleanin’ latrines to bein’ Saburo Arasaka’s bodyguard?” V asked softly.  
“The highest grades at the academy, service in the special forces and Arasaka-sama’s unmatched eye for talent.”  
“You’re not sayin’ Saburo fell for you at first sight,” she scoffed.  
“One hundred candidates standing at attention… and Arasaka-sama looked into each of our souls and chose the one who would serve him best.” Takemura recalled the moment he knew his life would monumentally change for the second time.  
“Did what you had to do to keep from goin’ hungry,” V said lightly, but the soldier noticed the faint hint of judgement in her tone and called her out, but she denied it.  
“Untrue,” he husked. “You oppose the corporations, their order, their world, in a mindless way, yet you offer no worthy alternative.”  
“Take a look around. It’s here – your corporate world in its glorious splendor,” she said with a wry smile, gesturing vaguely towards the skyline and he countered that Arasaka gave their employees stability and safety, an argument she did not take well, mentioning the extreme poverty as just another result a world ruled by corporations, a valid point in his book.  
“We cannot fix everything at once,” he relented, his eyes trained on the cat.  
“Tired of bickerin’. Let’s just drop it,” she sighed and he was well aware of the rift their argument had opened between them, suddenly feeling sorry for harshly defending the corporations, when he had dreamt about a simpler, more peaceful life countless times.  
  
“Sometimes I wish to become a nomad,” he rasped. “To leave this world, forget everything.”  
“Never too late to change,” she shrugged.  
“What is your expression…” the bodyguard countered, touched by her attempt to make him feel better. “‘One cannot teach an old dog new tricks.’” He stared at the Arasaka Warehouse, briefly wondering how everything could have gone so terribly wrong.  
“Do you know what I think?” he asked V.  
“What’s that?”  
“That day in Konpeki, we both have lost someone important,” he started off. “And we are not at peace with this, so we seek conflict, argue eagerly.”  
“Finally startin’ to make some sense,” she agreed, the sadness in her voice surprising him and he considered coming clean about the things he’d found out had happened to her mercenary friend after she’d sent his dead body to his family, knowing that she wouldn’t take it well. But she needed to know the truth, deserved it.  
“Why am I only hearin’ this now?” she asked in disbelief.  
“I did not know I could trust you,” he admitted. “The circumstances have changed.”  
She averted her gaze, trying to hide how hurt she really was as she kept her eyes trained on the cat that started its descent down the building.  
“The bakeneko got sick of us, looks like,” she simply said.  
“It will find its own way,” he assured her. “As will we.”  



	7. Seer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a successful infiltration of Arasaka Industrial Park, V and Takemura decide to treat the night before the parade like their last one on earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little more V-centric, because there's a lot to unpack: her fear of going against Arasaka again, the loss of her best friend and conflicting feelings towards the Arasaka bodyguard.
> 
> Title is another great track by Holy Fawn, basically the only music I listen to while writing, besides the CP 2077 OST.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this hefty chapter, feel free to leave kudos, feedback, whatever, I appreciate the interaction :)

After Takemura's revelation V was more than ready to storm the Arasaka Industrial Park guns blazing, mowing down everyone who got in her way in the fit of blind rage she felt towards the corporation that had defiled her best friend’s remains. She gritted her teeth, fingers already wrapped around the gun, when Johnny appeared at her side.  
“I appreciate the sentiment,” he said, his tone unusually stern as he lowered his aviators to look at her. “But one of us already died at the hands of Arasaka, so you better think of another way to get to that damned float.”  
_“You heard what they did to Jackie,”_ she hissed, waiting for the cold metal underneath her fingertips to calm her down. _“They gotta pay for it.”_  
“The only one paying for this is gonna be you, unless you’re gonna be smart about this,” Johnny appealed to her. “They got plenty of soldiers down there, some of them special forces. Open combat is suicide.”  
_“I don’t care!”_ she screamed, fuming at Johnny’s sudden rationality.  
“I do,” he rebutted, his tone soft. “Need you alive, kid.” He shrugged, then proceeded to rummage through his pockets for a burner.  
_“Geez, fine,”_ she huffed, holstering her weapon. _“Got any more pointers?”  
_“Passed that footbridge on my way down, deserted except for two soldiers,” he said, taking a drag. “Close enough to the building where they allegedly keep their floats.”  
_“Still don’t trust him, hm?”  
_“You shouldn’t either,” he countered. “Especially after that heart to heart you just shared.”  
She rolled her eyes at him. _“What now?”_  
“‘Saka soldier was a street kid before he turned into a corpo rat,” Johnny assessed. “Guess he knows how to play dirty after all.”  
_“He needs me alive,”_ V insisted, climbing a few boxes on her way towards the footbridge. _“That hasn’t changed.”_  
“For now,” Johnny remarked. “But don’t count on him as soon as he’s gotten what he wants from you.” With that he disintegrated into a burst of electric blue artifacts.

At least his assessment on the footbridge turned out to be useful, and she made it inside the compound in no time.  
“Stay in the shadows,” Takemura instructed her. “You are an easy target when you step out.”  
“Got it, Goro,” she breathed, sneaking her way towards security hub to put the surrounding cameras to sleep. “I’ll let you know when I made it in.”  
“Understood,” the soldier rasped curtly.  
Infiltrating the compound after nightfall combined with their more than thorough recon turned this mission into a ‘bed of roses’ after all, V thought to herself as she entered the warehouse.  
“Ok, I’m in,” she whispered.  
“Find the largest float. They are controlled from inside,” Takemura rasped. “The tech, it could be an ordinary terminal.”  
“Gotcha,” she confirmed. “How’s things on your end?”  
“Good,” Goro answered, his tone amused. “I will reach the control room and make a terrible mess. Very well, I am ready.”  
V saw the float they would need to infect as soon as she snuck into the warehouse, the building-sized construction towering over everything else stored in the hall.  
“Got my eyes on the prize,” she murmured. “Some special forces are guarding the terminal.”  
“That must be the one,” Takemura agreed. “Do not engage in combat if you can avoid it, the special forces are not to be messed with!”  
“I’ll keep that in mind,” V sighed in exasperation, already hacking the optics of the soldier right next to the computer she needed to infect, slipping into the booth undetected.  
She linked with the terminal and uploaded the virus, her heart pounding as the upload bar inched forward.  
  
“Okay, float’s ours to do with as we please,” she breathed. “You can fly it to Tokyo if you want."  
“Haha, I just may do that,” Goro laughed at her stupid joke. “Good work! Now it is my turn. Can you see? Terrible chaos! Even the roof is slowly… V, the roof. That is your way out!”  
The mercenary retreated from the terminal and hurried to climb scaffolding and boxes to reach the now opened roof, rain coming down on her.  
“There are buildings around, smaller ones. Use them to come down,” the soldier urged her. “V, you must hurry! An Arasaka AV approaches!”  
“I’m workin’ on it,” she pressed through gritted teeth, hoisting herself onto a bunch of crates.  
“I will get the van and pick you up once you have left the premises,” Takemura offered.  
“Our job here is done,” she refused. “Just delta the fuck outta here, Goro!”  
She skittered across the roof and jumped onto the surrounding buildings, careful not to slip on the wet metal surfaces, a wave of relief flooding her the second her boots touched concrete again.

The van stopped right next to her and she watched Takemura lean over to open the door for her.  
“V, get in the car,” he rasped, peering at her from behind the steering wheel. “The rain will not let up any time soon.”  
“You know I can just ping my car or use a terminal,” she retorted, her arms crossed in front of her chest, the cold raindrops colliding with her skin making her shiver.  
“Get in,” he ordered in a tone that allowed no further argument. “Now.”  
“Geez, Goro, fine!” she let out an exasperated sigh and hoisted herself into the passenger seat, the warmth of the heating and squeaky jazz tunes immediately enveloping her.  
“I will drop you off at your mega building,” he informed her as the car started rolling.  
“Thank you,” she murmured, to which the soldier let out a noncommittal grunt and she pulled her nomad jacked tighter around her shoulders. They spend the next ten minutes in comfortable silence as the rolled through the neighborhoods of Santo Domingo and Westbrook towards Watson.

“The other day I have found something I thought you might appreciate,” Takemura spoke into the void, giving her a quick glance before he nodded curtly towards the glove compartment.  
V opened the lid and grabbed the contents, a small gasp escaping her lips.  
“Shit, Goro, are you for real?!” she asked, twisting and turning the ragged little book in her hands. “Where the hell did you find that?!”  
“I was visiting a restaurant at the Cherry Blossom Market a few days ago,” Takemura recalled.  
“The ramen shop?” V inquired, raising her brow at him. “Met a client there once, didn’t eat anything though. Is it any good?”  
The soldier grimaced at her question.  
“I take that as a no,” she chuckled, gently opening the old paperback.  
“After that abomination of a soup I just wanted to return home, on my way I passed a stand with a woman who sold all kinds of things, mostly scrap,” he went on. “Saw this book in a crate at my feet and I remembered the title.”  
V was still flipping through the book and stopped when she’d finally found the lines she’d cited for Jackie’s _ofrenda_ , her chest tightening at the memory.  
“You will not manage to read it in its entirety before our mission,” Goro stated. “But I thought you might find comfort in its presence.”  
“I… Goro, this is…,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. “Probably the most thoughtful gift I’ve gotten in a while.” She wasn’t surprised to find out that Takemura had an eye for details, it came with his job after all, but knowing that he cared enough to remember something so insignificant warmed her heart. “Did you read it?”  
“Some of it,” the bodyguard replied. “I understand why you chose it for your friend.”

***

“Tonight’s not a night to hang out at the apartment, just waiting for things to come,” V decided, bristling at the thought of lying awake all night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Jackie and everything that could go wrong tomorrow.  
“The time waiting is best spend preparing,” the former Arasaka soldier retorted. “Meditating, training, sleeping.”  
“You always gotta be this efficient, Goro?” she asked and rolled her eyes. “We took care of everything, plan’s not one hundred percent, sure, but we just gotta wing the rest.” She shrugged.  
“There is nothing you wish to take care of before tomorrow?” he continued, stopping at a traffic light.  
“Well we…,” she began, suddenly swallowing hard and Takemura turned his head to look at her, the pain ghosting across her face so palpable that he too felt it inside his chest. “I used to have this kind of… ritual?”  
“Ritual?” the bodyguard echoed, eyes on the street again.  
“Yeah,” she breathed. “I am not superstitious or anything, but whenever I felt like the night before a job could be my last one on earth, I chose to live it up a little, y’know?”  
“Live it up a little…” Takemura’s voice trailed off as he softly shook his head at today’s youth.  
“Got my favorite food, a good drink or two, hung with the chooms,” she explained. “Sometimes we would go dancin’, get in a fight, whatever made us feel alive.”  
V smiled at memories of her and Jackie goin’ crazy at one of the many clubs in Night City, tequila in hand, dancing their worries away, drunk fights in dimly-lit alleys on their way home, cab rides where they imagined what their lives would look like when they finally came out on top… She sighed and turned aside to look at the city, the neon lights suddenly blurring as tears filled her eyes, a yearning to hear Jackie’s voice so deep it left her breathless.  
The bodyguard looked at his companion, who stared out the window, shrouded in silence and thought about the mission looming over them. Well-prepared, sure, but still so dangerous, with way too many possible points of failure for his taste, a job that might end both their lives.  
“Let us honor your ritual,” he said simply.  
“You wanna go dancing, Takemura?” she asked sardonically, letting him know that she was mocking him. “Shake the ol’ sack of bones one last time, huh?”  
“No,” he retorted curtly. “But dinner with a _‘choom’,_ as you like to say, sounds appropriate, given the upcoming task at hand.”  
“Preem,” V agreed, looking at the bodyguard at her side.  
“But I will not eat any of that garbage the street vendors call food in this city,” he hurried to add. “I cannot die with a scop burger being my last meal.”  
“I got you, choom,” V chuckled. “I know just the place.”  
She propped herself up in the seat, dialing a number.  
“Mamá Welles,” she said, the softness in the mercenary’s tone surprising Takemura. “How have you been?” He focussed on steering the car through the traffic, not wanting to eavesdrop on the two women catching up.  
“Could I ask you to whip up a variety of your best dishes?” V inquired, her voice joyful. “Gotta convince a friend that there is indeed good food to be found in Night City.” A soft laugh left her throat. “We’ll be there in 30.” She hung up, her gaze suddenly on him.  
“Okay, quick detour through Heywood, gotta pick up our dinner at El Coyote Cojo,” she instructed him. “I’ll tell you how to get there.”  
  
Takemura pulled over right in front of the bar, just as V had asked him to.  
“I’ll be back in no time,” she assured him, hopping out of the van.  
Returning to The Coyote Cojo felt like coming home, her throat tightened, now that everything reminded her of Jackie.  
“V… _mija_ ,” Mamá Welles greeted her warmly before pulling her into a tight hug. “You haven’t been here in months!” She tsked, but there was no accusation in her tone.  
“Yeah, I’ve been busy,” the mercenary sighed, giving Pepe a short nod and her widest smile as he placed her order on the bar. “Got gigs ’n shit.” Jackie's mother rose her brows, but refrained from asking further questions as she sensed that V was not in the mood to spill her heart out.  
“Packed everything you asked for,” she said, grabbing the paper bag off the bar. “Added a little extra.” She handed V a bottle of Centzon, Jackie’s favorite.  
“You shouldn’t have,” V said softly. “How much do I owe you?”  
“Nothing, _mija,_ ” Mamá Welles insisted. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”  
“Are you doing okay?” she inquired as they were crossing the room. “I didn’t wanna ask you in front of Pepe, but you look stressed.”  
“It’s nothing, Mamá Welles, don’t worry,” she answered, unable to ban the last hint of sorrow from her voice. “It’s just… nerves. Got a big job coming up.” Mamá Welles looked into her eyes and the sadness in her gaze made her stomach drop.  
“Just promise me to play it safe, okay?” she asked, a smile ghosting across her lips. “I am not ready to bury another one of my children.”  
“Will do,” V assured her with a wry grin. Jack's mom handed V the bag before she stepped outside, her eyes taxing the man behind the wheel.  
“He your new choom?” she asked.  
“Something like that,” V replied, suddenly feeling very protective towards Takemura.  
“Looks like a corpo,” Mamá Welles assessed, crossing her arms in front of her chest.  
“Yeah, he comes off a bit… stoic,” V joked. “But he’s a good guy.”  
A noncommittal hum left her lips before she placed a quick kiss on V’s cheek.  
“Stay out of trouble and come by more often,” she said and went back inside.  
V hurried through the rain and plopped back on the passenger seat, placing food and tequila in her lap.  
“Since I procured the dinner, you get to choose where we eat it,” she quipped as Takemura eyed the grease-soaked paper bag. “Better come up with a preem location for our last supper.”  
“I do have a place in mind,” the bodyguard retorted, starting the engine. “Who was your friend?”  
The gleeful expression vanished from V’s face and she slumped in her seat.  
“Jaquito’s mother,” she breathed, a mixture of joy and sadness whirling through her chest.  
“We do not need to talk about him again,” Takemura hurried to say. “But she appears to care a great deal about you.”  


***

They spend the next twenty minutes driving in comfortable silence, both of them left to their individual thoughts until the bodyguard took an unexpected turn into a garage right underneath one of the prime locations in Night City.  
“Are you sure we’re right here?” V broke the silence, her tone alarmed and skeptical.  
“Do you trust me, V?” Takemura asked, steering the vehicle all the way to the back, parking it right next to an elevator.  
“If I have to,” she sighed, rolling her eyes at his secrecy.  
“I promise you will not be disappointed,” the bodyguard replied, exiting the car only to re-appear at the passenger side, opening the door for her.  
“Quite the gentlemen you are,” she taunted him as he lifted the food off her lap.  
“I am a creature of habit,” he retorted and stepped into the elevator, waiting for her to enter before he pressed the button that started their ascent.  
A soft ding informed them about their arrival and V’s eyes grew wide as soon as the elevator door slid open.  
“You’re full of surprises today, Goro,” she murmured, walking into the penthouse.  
“I have my ways,” he said curtly as he walked over to the kitchen island to unpack the food, the delicious aroma exuding from the bag giving him hope. “One simply needs to know where to look.”  
“What is this place?” V asked, as she walked the hallway into the kitchen.  
“Arasaka corporate housing,” Takemura said simply.  
“Well, this explains a lot,” V replied, strolling through the dining area.  
“Like what?” Takemura asked while placing the variety of Mexican dishes on plates.  
“Your clean get-up for example,” the female mercenary stated. “I never got how you managed to pull off a white cotton shirt looking this pristine in an environment as grimy as Night City.”  
An amused grin curled the corners of his mouth as he carried their dinner over to the table.  
“The view is breathtaking,” he heard V’s voice coming from the window front overlooking downtown.  
“Come sit with me, V,” Takemura prompted, pulling one of the chairs back for her.  
“All that talk about being a man robbed of his implants, money and dignity,” she mocked him. “While you’ve been hiding out in a penthouse right underneath Arasaka’s nose.”  
“This is the first time I’ve come here,” he retorted. “Rest assured that my current accommodation is significantly less comfortable.”  
A short laugh fell from her lips as she walked into the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards, pulling out two crystal tumblers.  
“Can I get you a drink?” she asked, looking at the bodyguard sitting at the table, the soft light of the room illuminating the cyberware adorning his face, his expression so content that it made her heart flutter.  
“I am not much of a drinker,” he gently declined.  
“Well, don’t mind if I do,” V said, pouring herself generous three fingers of tequila before she went to sit down across from him. “God, Mama Welles really outdid herself this time!”  
  
V watched Takemura intently, her eyes trained on his face to decipher his thoughts on the food she’d brought, a part of her hoping that Mama Welles’ dishes gave him the same comfort she felt whenever she dug into her homemade chilaquiles at the Coyote Cojo.  
His discipline and knack for order seemed to transpire into even the most mundane tasks, she stared at him dissecting the burrito into identical pieces, moving each of them to his mouth with the help of a silver fork.  
V – suddenly uncomfortably aware of her non-existing nomad table manners – dropped the burrito she’d been scarfing down on her plate, an intense feeling of inadequacy heating her cheeks.  
“Are you not enjoying your dinner?” Takemura asked, the sly smile crossing his lips bringing out the laugh lines around his eyes.  
“Oh, haha, Goro,” she rolled her eyes at him. “Just irritated by your fussy way of eating is all.”  
“Food prepared by a master of the craft needs to be enjoyed, cherished,” he explained, placing the cutlery next to his plate. “I intend to pay my respect to the chef by appreciating the thought and hard work that went into this meal.”  
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna relay your praise to _master chef_ Mama Welles,” she mocked him, which made him smile again, definitely something she could get used to, especially since he’d been glum and distant after he’d told her some things about himself.  
  
To her horror, the edges of her field of vision started to fray, a shiver running down her spine announcing the inevitable return of the bane of her existence, and V steeled herself for what was to come.  
“Don’t you dare to even think about it, V!” Johnny snarled, leaning against the back of the sofa, drawing on his burner with relish, almost making her gag at the phantom taste in her mouth. “You wanna scratch the itch? Fine, let’s hit Jig-Jig street, take one of the joytoys for a spin.” He looked at Takemura, his face exhibiting utter disgust. “‘Cause no way in hell I’m gonna let you fuck that tired old ‘Saka dog.”  
_“Did I fuckin’ ask for your opinion?”_ she hissed in his direction.  
“We both know it doesn’t work like that,” Johnny pondered, taking another hefty drag. “Believe me, I’d rather be somewhere else right now, a pair of tits in my hands, dick buried deep inside an output…”  
_“Will you shut the fuck up?”_ she glared at him, but he only grinned in her face like a fucking silver-armed cheshire cat.  
“Are you alright, V?” Takemura asked, alarmed by her sudden rigidity and vacant stare, his words barely dragging her back to the present and their conversation.  
“I… uh, “ she stuttered, fingers flying to her temple. “I need air.” She pushed herself off the table and hurried outside, greedily sucking the fresh evening breeze into her lungs. V walked over to the banister, bracing herself on the cool metal and stared at the city. There was that smell she loved, dusty asphalt after heavy rain, and she closed her eyes as she inhaled deeply, the scent a subtle reminder of her former life in the badlands. She thought about the day she met Jackie, both of them tasked to smuggle contraband across the border, a job that went sideways, but turned them into friends. His face when he saw that iguana was priceless and the reptile kept them entertained as they waited for the heat around them to die down, so they could finally return to Night City.  
He wanted to keep that iguana so bad, and after Misty had told her about Taco, his dwarf shark, his fascination with that disturbing creature made a whole lot more sense.  
Her thoughts had been with her former choom all day and by now she asked herself if this was her mind’s way of letting her know that their plan to get to Hanako Arasaka during the parade was doomed – much like the heist that cost Jackie his life.  
She sighed and rubbed her eyes with a groan, when she suddenly heard footsteps coming her way.  
  
“When did the rain stop?” Takemura asked, his voice rough.  
“I have no idea,” V replied, turning around to face him. “But the air is perfect.”  
“I apologize for my earlier assumption,” he rasped, his brows furrowed. “I did not mean for your old wounds to rip open again.” V gave him a wry smile.  
“It’s not your fault,” she said quietly. “You were right when you said that the both of us lost someone that day at Konpeki Plaza and I am not sure the feeling of having failed a partner like that will ever truly fade… But it put some things in perspective, at least for me.”  
Takemura leaned on the railing next to her, eyes on the city.  
“Would you do it differently, if you were given the chance?” he asked, his gaze holding hers.  
“You and I both know that there are no take backs and do overs in life,” she said simply. “Just lessons.”  
“Such wise words from someone your age,” Takemura said softly.  
“Are you mocking me for a change?” she countered, a smile tugging at her lips. “Did I teach this old dog some new tricks after all?”  
“Maybe,” he said, his voice low. “But please, tell me, what did you learn from your mistake?”  
“That life is a force beyond our control,” she said. “And therefore has to be experienced in the moment.”  
She looked at Takemura in the pale twilight of the city after heavy rain, surprised to see yet another soft smile on his lips.  
“Sure, aspirations and dreams are neat reasons to keep you soldiering on,” she explained, vaguely gesturing with her hand. “But ultimately they retain people from seeing what’s right in front of them.”  
She noticed the subtle change in Takemura’s eyes, like he’d realized something, right in this moment where the both of them stood on the balcony overlooking downtown.  
“V,” he said, his tone suddenly flat and urgent, and she stared at him wide-eyed, surprised by the need in his voice. The pulling sensation in her stomach made her heart flutter, her peripheral vision fraying once again.  
  
_“Not. NOW!”_ she pressed through gritted teeth as soon as Johnny sauntered outside, provocatively turning his back to the city, placing his elbows on the banister, right next to the Arasaka soldier.  
“God, this shit is horrifying to watch,” he complained, looking her dead in the eyes. “Think I might’ve puked in my mouth a little back there.” The malicious grin in his face was hard to take so V averted her gaze, tried to focus on the city lights instead.  
“My aspirations and dreams never kept me from living,” Johnny remarked, lighting yet another burner.  
_“They were the one thing that got you killed,”_ V flipped on him. _“Your legacy ended up being nothing more than scraps of code etched into a shard that’s now sadly stuck in my brain.”  
_ “True, I give you that,” he retorted, the burner resting between his fingers. “Yet I am here with you, walkin’ and talkin’, just living my life…”  
_“Kinda wish you’d just fuck off,”_ she groaned.  
Not privy to her ongoing quarrel with Johnny, Takemura mistook her silence for her not being in the mood to talk, so he straightened up and retreated inside the penthouse.  
“Do you think I wanna be here to see you thirsting after ‘Saka scum?” he let out a rough laugh. “They are not to be trusted, and you of all people should know that.”  
_“Right now, Takemura and Hanako Arasaka are our only option,”_ she bit back, infuriated by Johnny’s crude assumption.  
“No, they’re not,” he retorted, throwing his burner over the railing, the cherry glowing all the way down. “But I’ll leave you to figure this out on your own, hopefully before it is too late.” And with that he disappeared in a cloud of electric blue artifacts, leaving her on the balcony, strung out and alone.  
She watched Goro as he tidied away dishes and food containers, a part of her wondering what he’d wanted to say to her before Johnny butted in. V would love to hear Jackie’s take on her teaming up with the corpos that killed him and her conflicted feelings towards this mission intensified.  
“I guess it‘s too late, Johnny,” she mumbled and walked over to join the Arasaka soldier inside.


	8. Take Me With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the pressure of the upcoming mission grinding down on them, it is only a matter of time until the sensitive balance between the mercenary and the bodyguard shifts and finally combusts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually considered keeping this fic smut-free, but then the naked Goro mod flooded tumblr and here we are.
> 
> The sheer amount of quality fan fiction on this pairing never ceases to amaze me, a special shout-out to [VoiDreamer's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoiDreamer/pseuds/VoiDreamer) original fic [Rewards For Loyalty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440309/chapters/69692580) that gave me the idea with assigned mates for Arasaka employees.
> 
> Let me know what you think, the interactions with you guys are appreciated very much, 'cause this fandom is the best <3

She grabbed her half-emptied drink on her way towards the kitchen, took a sip and leaned against a window pane between the counter and dining room.  
“Sorry about that,” she said quietly, watching the Arasaka soldier roll up his sleeves, mildly surprised to see unmodded, organic arms. “Guess I have a hard time wrapping my head around the mission. Going against Arasaka, knowing what happened the first time around, kinda feels like we're pushing our luck.” She shrugged and took another swig, eyes on Takemura, now doing the dishes.  
“Our plan is good and we are well prepared,” the former bodyguard stated calmly. “We took our time to ensure everything is taken care of.”  
“Don’t you think we did the same before Konpeki Plaza?” she scoffed, her face hard and closed off. “I told you I had researched everything, just didn’t anticipate Saburo’s arrival or Yorinobu’s spontaneous patricide to fuck up our well-planned heist.”  
Goro turned around and looked at her, leisurely resting against the countertop.  
“You are not the one who is going to talk to Hanako,” he said, drying his hands with a towel. “That risk is all mine.”  
“I love how you tend to conveniently forget about Oda, the soldier you turned into an efficient killing machine,” she growled, narrowing her eyes. “His _honor_ might keep him from murkin’ you, but the memory of him telling me that _‘I’ll bring death to my door’_ is still pretty fuckin’ vivid.”  
“And I advised you to keep your distance,” Takemura replied curtly.  
“Doesn’t help me when he decides to come for me, does it?” V said sourly before downing the rest of her tequila. “I’ll be toast either way.”  
“Are you afraid to die, V?” Takemura inquired, the simplicity of this question catching her off guard.  
“No,” she responded truthfully after a pause. “I am afraid that I might not have lived life to the fullest, now that I’m running out of time.”  
A noncommittal hum left Takemura’s lips, encouraging her to elaborate.  
“Jackie and I used to talk about how we wanted to go out with a bang, so desperate to become Afterlife legends like Johnny Silverhand,” she smiled softly at the tender memories. “But the Relic changes everything, for all I know I’m gonna quietly disappear into the night without anyone noticing.” V sighed deeply before she placed her glass on the counter. “People are gonna forget about V, about the things I’ve done. I’ll just… fade away.”  
“I will not forget about you,” Takemura said, his tone serious. “I will remember you as the fearless mercenary, brave enough to become a… friend to a disgraced Arasaka soldier.” V gave the former bodyguard a wry grin, confused by the sudden display of emotions clouding his usually stoic expression. There was a strange pull, a suspense beginning to expand into the room, filling up the corners.  
“What’s with the face, Goro?” she croaked, alarmed by the sudden tension in his body, but instead of answering, he took a quick step towards her, his lips crashing against hers with a desperation that made her realize that he might be the one who was afraid to die, after all.  
  
His hands cupped her face ever so gently, the chrome embedded in his fingers cool against her flushed skin, his lips roaming hers with a feverish urgency that made her weak in the knees.  
V aimed to unbutton his shirt, but he swiftly grabbed both her wrists and effortlessly pinned them above her head.  
“I have wished to do this for some time,” he rasped, his breath ragged against her cheek. “There is no need to rush it.” V stilled her movements and looked at his face like it held all the answers, the heat pooling inside her stomach making her dizzy.  
Then he kissed her again, one hand restraining her, the other one caressing her body, making her sigh softly as his deft fingers unbuttoned her leather pants and worked them down her thighs with ease. His fingertips ghosted across her lower belly, danced over her hips and rested on her waist as he deepened the kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth with a caution she would’ve never expected, since he usually appeared so tough and unaffected by the world crumbling around him, yet somehow seemed to fear rejection. Takemura leaned into her, their bodies now flush and she could feel him strain against his pants, the pure idea of seeing someone as composed as the Arasaka soldier coming undone filling her with a lust so deep she was barely able to think straight. She felt his soft sigh against her jaw as he whispered Japanese words of praise, his lips brushing against her cheek, sending waves of goosebumps across her body. The fingers of his free hand tugged at the waistband of her panties, slowly snaking towards her heated core.

Surprised by the soft slickness awaiting him he cursed in a voice so low her optics lagged for a good two seconds before they translated his words.  
“You are not making this any easier,” he rumbled.  
“I’m not doing anything,” she whispered into the scruff right next to his ear, making him shiver. “This is all on you.” Her breath hitched as soon as his digits began to explore her folds and she relaxed into his gentle but relentless touch.  
V tilted her head back against the window, screwing her eyes shut as his fingers circled in on her clit, expertly setting her entire body on fire, making her feel like she was caught in a fever dream.  
His lips trailed down her throat, along her collarbone while his fingertips danced around her entrance, reminding that she was entirely at his mercy, had been since the day they’d met.  
“Fuck, Goro,” she moaned as he slipped two digits inside her, his fingers stretching her ever so slightly and he answered with a soft hum that vibrated against her skin. “This is torture.”  
He picked up the pace and she felt like her legs were about to give out when he finally let got of her wrists, allowing her to anchor herself to him. V buried her fingers in the hair underneath his neatly-tied bun and forced him to tilt his head back, exposing the sensitive bits of skin that were unprotected by his endoskeleton.  
  
She dragged her nails along the stubble on his jaw, her gaze holding his as she placed one finger underneath his chin, her thumb on his lips. His expression was calm, borderline bored, his disheveled hair and wild eyes the only indication that he was as caught up in the moment as she was. While Takemura’s hand was still busy between her legs, V wrapped her palm around the sharp edges of the metal and carbon protecting his neck and pulled him closer, bringing her lips to his ear.  
“What is it that you want?” she husked, her voice low. V leaned back and watched the ripples of her question ghost across his face, softening it. Takemura’s gaze pinned hers, the silver rings around his irises burning bright as he silently asked for her consent.  
An amused smile pulled at the corners of her mouth and he punished her by increasing his efforts, eliciting a soft moan from deep inside her chest right before she pulled him back in and whispered “Take me as you please, Goro.”

The promise behind her words sent a burning sensation down his spine, the heat settling in his loins, straining his dress pants even more. He swallowed hard and bared his teeth, his gaze devouring the cocky expression on her flushed face.  
“Are you sure this is what you want, Valerie?” he asked, cool and collected, a brow furrowed. Her mouth opened before she could hold back a gasp, surprised to find out he knew her full name. V stared at the man almost forty years her senior and nodded slowly, her body trembling with anticipation.  
Takemura wrapped the hand he’d kept on the wall around the back of her neck, his cyberware-enhanced fingertips digging into her skin as he pulled her with him, away from the windows, towards the kitchen counter.  
“Bend over,” he husked, his voice so dangerously low that it sent shocks through her spine. “Now!”  
His palm moved down, coming to rest between her shoulder blades, pressing her body against the polished surface of the furniture in front of her and for a moment she felt like she’d caught a glimpse of the pure, unadulterated rage simmering deep inside of him and she wondered if this was the reason Saburo Arasaka hat chosen him to be his bodyguard.  
V felt his rough hand brushing along her spine, fingertips exploring her soft skin, following the lines of the tattoos that adorned her back and he rumbled something in Japanese that floated away, undetected by her translator.  
She moaned when his fingers grazed her wet folds as he wrapped them around her underwear, only to rip it off her body with the calculated efficiency of someone who was accustomed to evaluating and removing obstacles.  
“You are aching for me,” he assessed in his mother tongue, loud enough for her to understand, only the strain in his voice giving him away. She swallowed hard when she heard his belt-buckle jingle, followed by the sound of fabric rustling against skin, heat pooling in her stomach, leaving her entire body yearning for him. V rested her forehead on the cool marble of the counter, focussed to keep her breathing steady as he brushed his tip along her entrance, so slow, tentative and methodical that it almost ended her. It took her all the willpower she got left to refrain from screaming out in frustration, begging him to finally take her. His thumb lazily circled her clit and V screwed her eyes shut when the first trembles jolted through her body as he aligned himself with her entrance.  
V gasped at the sensation of his girth seemingly splitting her in half and tried to pull away, but his grip on her hips was firm and held her in place as he gave her the time she needed to adjust.  
A weak _‘fuck’_ fell from her lips as he finally started moving again, his pace slow and steady, like he was trying to savor that moment, take it all in and for a split second she wondered if there was any room for sexual escapades in the life of an Arasaka bodyguard.

Takemura soon picked up the pace, hoarse moans slipping out into the silence of the room, the neediness in his tone inching her closer towards the edge. She arched her back in a desperate attempt to gain leverage and he answered by bending over her, his loins now pressing against her cheeks, allowing the bodyguard to bury himself even deeper inside her. V moaned, surprised to feel her orgasm building up already, her muscles involuntarily clenching around him.  
_“Kuso!”_ Goro growled, his voice strangled, like he was barely hanging on and she tightened her muscles around him, on purpose this time. “You are the devil, woman.”  
His words went straight to her core and she felt the thunderstorm building inside of her, making her skin tingle with electricity and she prepared herself for her release when the soldier suddenly stilled his movements and proceeded to pull back, leaving her confused, dissatisfied and infuriated.  
“What are you doing?” she hissed, glaring at him over her shoulder.  
A cunning smile graced his lips, and with his undone hair and crumpled shirt hanging from the pants he hastily zipped, his entire appearance was just disheveled enough to conciliate her for the moment.  
“I am not inclined to provide a show for eventual AV’s passing by,” he rasped, barely out of breath. “Some things are meant to be enjoyed in private.”  
“A warning would’ve been nice,” V rebutted, pushing herself off the counter to look at him. “Not a big fan of unfinished business.”  
“Neither am I,” Takemura stated, brushing stray hair out of his face. “And rest assured, I am not done with you.”  
A lopsided grin curled V’s mouth and she held Takemura’s gaze as she shimmied out of her leather pants, then discarded her top and the bra underneath it. She took a step towards him and wrapped her fingers around his half-opened collar, leading the way towards the bedroom she’d discovered earlier.

She began to unbutton his shirt a second time and he let her, the softness of her touch against his skin almost unbearable. V knew that he had to be in shape for the job that he’d had, but was surprised to see how well-trained he actually was, his body lean and flexible.  
Like she’d told Johnny once, she knew if he put his mind to it, Takemura could decomish her in seconds, even without the help of his implants and she bristled at the thought.  
Her fingers wandered along his warm skin of his stomach, littered with scars telling tales about a dangerous life. V stripped the shirt off his shoulders and pushed him down on the mattress before she straddled him, her palm on the protective shield bolted to his sternum.

“You have a hard time with giving up control, huh?” she asked, looking down on him.  
“It is a vitally important habit that comes with the job,” he husked with heavy-lidded eyes, groaning as she ground her hips against his.  
“I will teach you another important lesson then,” she said, her voice calm as she worked his zipper open.  
“And what lesson will that be?” Takemura asked, mildly amused.  
“How to let go,” she rasped as she wrapped her fingers around his length and felt him buck into her, inhaling sharply, before he closed his eyes, submitting himself to her touch. V watched his brows knit over lids blacked with smudged eyeliner, a white scar above his left eye catching her gaze. She took in the delicate cyberware adorning his high cheekbones and followed it all the way to the silver strands of hair gracing his temples, reminding her that they were decades apart, a fact that didn’t bother her as much as she’d initially expected.  
“Look at me,” she pleaded and he opened his eyes, the silver rim around the darkness of his iris almost glowing white as she took him in.  
  
She kept Takemura pinned to the mattress, moving her hips in slow, controlled circles against his, her walls so impossibly tight that he would only last minutes. His mind wandered and he found himself recalling the last time he’d been intimate with a woman, years ago. Arasaka had matched him with a suitable counterpart, chosen from their roster of women holding higher positions within the company, an initiative they’d fostered to increase employee performances. His mate, Tamiko, had been in her forties, petite, with long, dark brown hair she usually kept in a knot at the nape of her neck, a sharp jawline and thin lips, giving her an aura of rigor that transpired into her every action. Their sexual encounters were efficient and calculated, much like business transactions that meant nothing to either of them. He’d never needed the company of a woman, his days were filled with dangerous duties and frequent travels that kept him busy, a lifestyle he would not want to impose on a wife, let alone a family – so he asked to terminate the agreement, deciding that love and companionship were just not meant for him. 

And now he found himself staring at V, who towered over him, her eyes wide with wonder, looking so alive, so young that he almost couldn’t take it, desperately trying to make sense of this newfound feeling of affection burning like fire inside his chest. This was the closest he’d felt to someone in a long time and he wondered how in the hell that feisty small-time merc had managed to slip past his defenses. The soldier averted his gaze and turned his head aside, the sudden realization that she might actually die leaving him breathless.  
“Goro,” she whispered his name like a song, but he couldn’t bear to look at her. He had coaxed V into this mission, bonded with her for the sole purpose of keeping her alive until she’d helped him dethrone Yorinobu and avenge Saburo-sama, only to discard her afterwards. All things considered he’d been lying to himself, thinking he was better than that fucking fixer or any petty thief in Night City, but he wasn’t. He was a self-righteous crook, hiding his ulterior motive behind promises and good intentions, stringing her along when he should’ve let her use her remaining days to find out what she really wanted to do with her life.

He flinched as he felt her modded palm on his cheek, her fingers locking around his jaw, forcing him to face her and when he opened his eyes he realized she’d been his polar star in Night City all along.  
She threw her head back, a string of soft moans spilling from her lips as her pace grew faster, almost frantic, her other palm still pressed to his chest, fingertips digging into carbon and skin, leaving tiny crescent marks in the latter.  
“I am close,” she breathed, her voice catching in her throat and he felt her core tighten around him, guiding him towards his own release. “Fuck!” Her hitched breathing and noises of pleasure filled the room, each sound fueling the pulling sensation he felt inside his stomach, amplifying the wistfulness that came with the inevitable ending.  
“Valerie,” he groaned, his hands digging into her soft parts as she cursed his name in return and clenched around him, pushing him over the edge as well. She collapsed against his chest, shaking uncontrollably, gasping for air so he wrapped his arms around the small of her back and held her as their shared high pulled the both of them under.  
  
V woke up to sunbeams tickling her face and she turned around to find Goro lying next to her, fast asleep, barely covered by the rumpled sheets. He looked peaceful, soft strands of hair that had escaped his bun in the night framing his weathered face and she had to fight the urge to drag her fingers along the sharp angles of his jaw.  
The merc slid out of the bed instead and sauntered into the living room, gathering discarded items of clothing from the floor.  
“Fuckin’ hell, Goro,” she cursed, staring at the synth silk panties he’d ripped apart. “Those were my favorite.” V slipped into her leather pants, grimacing at the feel against her sensitive skin, before she shoved the underwear in her pocket and proceeded with her bra, top and finally the yellow nomad jacket she’d grown to like.  
She let her gaze wander across the cleaned kitchen and dining area and walked back into the bedroom, plucking Goro’s shirt off the floor to hang it over a chair and keep it from getting wrinkled any further, because she liked that stupid pristine-looking cotton thing on him more than she cared to admit.

After grabbing her guns from the sideboard in the hallway, she slipped into the elevator, riding all the way down into the garage, when the static in the back of her head returned, artifacts distorting her sight.  
"Glad to see you got that out of your system," Johnny griped, a burner in the corner of his mouth.  
_"You were around for… that?"_ V inquired, staring at her imaginary foe turned friend.  
"No one in their right mind would voluntarily get fucked by Arasaka – twice," he sneered, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. "We share a body, remember? I can feel it."  
V blushed at the pulling sensation in her core, the only remnant of last night’s countless stolen moments between her and Takemura.  
_"Shame,"_ she huffed. _"Might've learned a trick or two,"_ to which Johnny scowled at her in return.  
"Just do me a favor and don't go there again," Silverhand requested. "Fuckin' a sad ol' 'Saka dog is beyond us."  
_"Could you not ruin my mood today?"_ V groaned, marching through the neon-lit structure filled with fancy cars.  
"Then stop thinking about him!" Johnny snarled.  
_"Fine!"_ she hissed, walking up the ramp, into the sunny day. After a quick ping, her beloved Arch pulled up in front of her and she swung her leg over the saddle, a smile on her face. V revved the engine, considered a long drive through the city to clear her head, and rode off, wind blowing in her hair, confidence blooming inside her chest.


	9. Blood Pact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is the day of the parade and when their meticulous plan goes to hell in a handbasket, V and Takemura have to decide what is more important to them: their friendship or cold and calculated revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That mission stressed me out so much, and I was more than happy I managed to save Goro, so I can only imagine how V must've felt about it. He would've died with a scop burger as his last meal and I couldn't let that happen.
> 
> We are nearing the end of this wild ride, only one more chapter to go, but rest assured, an epilogue/new work is already waiting to be published.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who stuck with me this far, this fandom and the people in it give me life!

That whole parade mission had been going way to smooth to be true, leaving her with a faint uneasiness as she crept through the buildings on her way to take out the snipers one by one.  
Takemura tethered her to the real world, dropping bits and pieces of intel on the sniper’s hideouts, his gravelly voice the baseline to her mission. The memories of all the things he’d rasped into her ear just last night made it incredibly hard to focus on the task at hand and she wondered if the bodyguard was equally flustered by her presence.  
“Shut up, Goro” she urged him, stalking the first sniper crouched on the maintenance platform of a screened advertisement. V proceeded to hack his optics, climbed the structure and snapped his neck before he even realized she was coming for him. “One down, two more to go,” she sighed with relief.  
“Good,” Takemura grunted. “Now you must leap to the balcony by the green arrow and take the elevator. Take the footbridge at the top to cross the street.”  
V made her way into the elevator without any incidents, allowing herself a few seconds to catch her breath and calm herself, when Takemura’s voice returned.  
“V, this is important,” he croaked, his tone unusually flat. “Oda is speaking to someone. I am linking you in. We both can listen.”  
  
She barely followed the conversation of the two men, as she was too busy pushing down the panic surging in her system, a limbic reaction to the voice she’d just heard. Unsure if this was on her or Johnny, she felt the static in the back of her head return, Takemura’s voice nothing but a faint background noise, her world disappearing in a cloud of artifacts.  
As soon as the elevator doors opened, she saw Johnny, nervously pacing in front of her.  
“I know that borged out ogre!” he exclaimed. “Adam fuckin’ Smasher!”  
_“Guy who killed you, right?”_ V asked, picturing the grotesque appearance of the man who was more machine than anything else. “I saw him at Konpeki Plaza.”  
Johnny rambled on, something about how he’d exact his revenge on Smasher, now that Saburo was dead.  
_“You gotta be satisfied?”_ V scoffed. _“You got fuck-all to lose!”  
_ “All right, fine – we,” Johnny appeased, still visibly excited by this opportunity. “Your finger on the fuckin’ trigger I guess.”  
She rolled her eyes at him and snuck towards the maintenance area, Johnny still at her heels as she eyed the crooked metal construction she was supposed to cross.  
“Catwalk don’t look to stable…” Johnny assessed smugly. “Sure Takemura didn’t plan a little “whoopsie-daisy” for ya?” She scowled at him before she set her feet on the surface, carefully inching forward, the construction squeaking under her modest weight, when the grate right in front of her toes just dropped out.  
“Fuck! Almost fell!” she cursed, only to be lectured by the Arasaka soldier.  
“Told you so,” Johnny quipped.  
  
“You will have to get down somehow,” Takemura’s voice returned to her. “Just be careful.” V crouched behind the banister, evading the drone’s prying eyes.  
“Yes, just so,” the soldier rasped. “Don’t rush,” his words sending goosebumps all the way down her spine. “I need you alive, not a corpse below.”  
“Gee, thanks for the pep talk, Goro,” she huffed, sliding down the walkways, careful to avoid being spotted, shutting down the drones in her way. The mercenary made it to the next sniper without further distractions and silently took him out.  
“What do soldiers say? Target down,” she breathed, taking everything she might need off her dead opponent before she moved on to kill the third and final one.  
“Good words to hear,” Takemura sad curtly, before he relayed just another conversation between Oda and Smasher to her, alarmed that they might have been found out.  
“Did you hear?” he asked. “They know something. Perhaps much! We must hurry."  
“I’m on it!” V retorted, sneaking up two flights of stairs, taking guards in her way out with clean headshots.  
“Try to reach the maintenance area. You can climb up from there,” the soldier instructed her as soon as she was out of the building. “And if that does not work, you can use the footbridge to your right. Watch out for the float jets. Unless you intend to get cooked, I would keep my head down.”  
V smiled wryly at his half-hearted joke and decided to try her luck with the maintenance area.  
They spend her final elevator ride in radio silence and she didn’t even break a sweat when she took out the two guards positioned to secure the door.  
“A shooter patrols the footbridge.” Takemura warned her, but she’d already taken him out.  
“Welp, that would be all,” she stated simply.  
“Yes, apparently. Well done,” he husked. “One problem remains.”  
“And that is?” she asked languidly.  
“The Arasaka netrunner. She has taken control of all the networks. She hides in an unfinished apartment building, near the second sniper’s nest.”  
“Okay, on my way,” V huffed, reloading her gun. “The things I do to keep your gonk-ass safe…” she muttered under her breath as she hurried towards the elevator that would bring her back to where she’d just come from.

Takemura brought the ancient scope to his eye and watched V enter the balcony leading towards the abandoned apartment construction where the Arasaka netrunner had positioned herself. He’d feared that last night had changed something between them, but when V met him at the market she seemed calm and centered, ready for their mission. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but he found her tone to be slightly warmer when she greeted him, told him that he looked like a million eddies and her fingers grazing his, lingering on purpose as she took the shard from him, but it could just as well be his mind playing tricks on him.  
He looked at her as she leaned on the railing, marveling at the light effects and opulent floats of the parade, her face beaming with joy and wonder and he realized that last night meant more to him than he cared to admit – _she_ meant more to him. He should’ve known when he read the book he bought as a present and found that one line reminded him of V, tempting him to pick up his burner phone and give her a call to share it with her. Or when he caught himself staring at her eyes and lips while she was talking to him, hoping to catch a glimpse of that lopsided smile he liked so much, because it was honest, lighthearted and real.  
He sensed movement and focussed on the mercenary again, right before she unsheathed her katana and went into the building, prompting him to distract the netrunner so V could jack her out.  
Takemura kept his eyes trained on her as she snuck up to the hacker and pulled the plug, when he suddenly noticed two red streaks flaring up in the dark, moving from Hanako’s float towards the open windows of the construction site, making his heart skip a beat.  


V found herself lingering on the balcony, listening to the ethereal singing, mesmerized by the splendor of the parade. If everything in Japan was this artistic and beautiful, she kinda could understand why Goro yearned to return to his home country, since there was nothing resembling this beauty to be found in Night City. She pushed away from the railing and turned towards the unfinished building, when the dizziness hit her out of nowhere, almost bringing her to her knees.  
“Shit… Not good,” she pressed through gritted teeth, trying to steady her breathing; she needed to be on her a-game for this, there simply wasn’t any room for failure.  
V unsheathed her katana and walked through a short hallway, right into the construction site, when Takemura’s caller ID appeared on her holo.  
“Now V! I have her attention,” he urged her the second she picked up. “Pull out her link!”  
“Been on a while. Time for a break,” she mumbled, yanking the jack out from the back of the netrunner’s head, when she noticed a faint movement in her peripheral vision.  
  
He saw her jerk back, barely able to escape Oda’s first blow, shielding herself with her katana.  
Takemura knew that she was too slow and that it would only be a matter of time until his former protégé would have tired her enough to slice her limbs off, one by one. The fear blooming inside his chest made his heart stumble, the cold sensation trickling down his spine paralyzed him. The bodyguard helplessly watched V swing her blade, but Oda fended off her attacks with ease, mocking her every time she missed. The soldier activated his comm, careful not to startle V as he gave her some insights on the cyberninja he’d trained so long ago.  
  
“Fuck!”, she yelled, stumbling backwards, evading Oda’s brandished Mantis Blade by a hair.  
“Danger ahead,” Oda taunted her, his voice distorted by his helmet.  
“Course you’re here!” V snarled, katana at the ready.  
“I warned you,” the cyberninja growled, relentlessly coming down on her with his glowing blades. “You should have quit and left the city!” She countered his blow with her sword, the sound of metal screeching against metal filling the room.  
“Distance, watch the distance!” Takemura rasped into her ear. “Stay away from his blade or he will slice you like fish!”  
“I am trying!” she screamed, swinging her weapon to block yet another blow. “He’s too fast.”  
“You leave me no choice!” Oda said, his tone menacing as he tried to back her into a corner.  
“A little help, Goro!” she panted, retreating behind one of the many make-shift walls dividing the floor, exchanging her katana for the Shingen Mark V she’d klepped from Arasaka Industrial Park, a short sound letting her know that the weapon had connected to her smart-link.  
“His mask disturbs targeting!” Takemura warned her. “You must try another way!”  
“Y’think I brought my entire stash?!” she bit back, her tone incredulous. “I prepared for stealth, not a fight with your little pet project!”  
“Still you struggle?! Let us try another way!” Oda sneered from one of the platforms hanging in the room.  
“Do not make the mistake to underestimate Oda!” the bodyguard countered. “Use something with a little more… vigor.” V hurried to pull Overwatch, the sniper rifle Panam gave her, off her back and proceeded to scan her surroundings through the scope.  
“I can’t see him,” she whispered, her breath catching in her tightened chest.  
“He must have activated camouflage,” Takemura explained. “Look for breaks in the light.”  
“Breaks in the light,” V mumbled, narrowing her eyes. “Got ya!”  
The distortion was faint, but she saw where the room ended and Oda’s combat suit began. V adjusted her aim and fired a bullet directly into his arm, drawing first blood.  
“You’ll pay for this!” Oda husked, his Mantis Blades glowing in the dark as he elegantly flipped off his lookout, ready to peel the skin off her bones. “And Takemura – where’s he?! Fearful to face his apprentice?!” She fired another shot, this time into his chest, the pure force throwing him onto his back, but he quickly recovered and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.  
“You… will not touch her… I… will not let you!” Oda’s voice echoed through the room as V changed positions, the hair in the back of her neck rising. As soon as she heard faint footfalls to her right she dove into one of the containers in the room, blindly throwing an EMP grenade over her shoulder, that caught Oda mid-attack, finally bringing him to his knees. Takemura’s caller ID appeared in her field of vision and she hurried to answer.

“I… I managed to…,” V rasped, the rifle suddenly heavy in her hands.  
“Oda… Is he dead?” Takemura inquired, his tone agonized.  
“He’s breathin’…” the mercenary retorted. “For now.”  
“Please, V. Show him mercy,” the soldier requested as she walked over to the beaten cyberninja curled up on the cold concrete floor. “There should be nothing standing in your way now. We press forward!”  
“You and your fuckin’ sick sense of honor…” V scoffed, towering over him, before she stripped the defeated opponent of his weapons and armor.  
"Well hello there," she grinned, turning the jet-black katana she'd taken off him, which her optics identified as Jinchu Maru, in her hands before she sheated it. “Today’s your lucky day, though. Can thank your old friend, Goro.”  
“It is I who thanks you, V,” Takemura said softly, then ended the call.  
  
Takemura felt relief, maybe even pride, knowing that V had managed to defeat Oda but refrained from killing his former trainee. The mercenary had given her all to ensure their mission’s success and now it was his turn to hold up his end of their deal. He rolled his shoulders and walked towards the ledge, a gentle breeze ruffling his hair as he stared at Hanako’s float, hovering roughly fifteen feet below him. Should he miss it, his fall would be even deeper and most certainly lethal, a price he was willing to pay to exonerate himself and convict the real murderer of Saburo Arasaka – his son, Yorinobu. V’s voice murmured in his ear, letting him know that she’d disabled the defense system of the float and he took a deep breath, his eyes fixed on the ledge he planned to land on, before he finally took the impossible leap.  
  
V jacked into the interface and found herself face to face with the Arasaka heiress Hanako, in the middle of a call with her brother, telling him about the threat that had been detected and Oda not answering her calls, her obvious worry giving the mercenary a grim satisfaction. She followed the ensuing discussion about cancelling the parade and in the end, Hanako gave in and decided to pull through before she hung up, visibly distressed by everything that was happening around her.  
“Goro? All systems jammed. It’s now or never,” she husked, disabling the turret.  
“For father,” she heard Hanako whisper right before Takemura emerged from the shadows behind the heiress, like a thief in the night.  
“Hanako-sama,” he greeted her with folded hands and a bow, his sudden servility angering V.  
She barely managed to follow their heated discussion entirely held in Japanese when Hanako suddenly launched towards the bodyguard, who pulled a gun and just shot her down, catching her lifeless body before it hit the floor.  
“V, run!” he ordered and she jacked out, horrified.

“He shot her?” Johnny asked, mild amusement in his tone.  
_“Whatever he did, now we’re really fucked!”_ she cursed, ready to bolt before Oda’s forces would come down on her, now that the Arasaka heiress had been abducted from her float, right underneath their noses.  
“Knew we couldn’t trust him!” Johnny growled. “What happened to keepin’ him on his leash?! We’d best delta the fuck outta here.” And with that V ran, as fast as she could, ducking from the onslaught of bullets drones and soldiers sent her way until she reached the elevator that led to the street. Takemura called the second the doors slid shut, concern in his voice when he asked if she was secure.  
“Ya… for now!” she snarled, anger surging inside her chest. “Lost your fuckin’ mind?!”  
“There is no time to explain,” Takemura rasped. “We must meet.”  
“Where are you?”  
“An abandoned apartment block on Vine Street. Second floor, number three-zero-three,” he answered curtly. “Knock four times. Hurry!”

***

“OK. Come inside, quick,” he rasped, his grip around her shoulder vice-like. “I feared they had caught you,” he added, his face softening.  
“I’m no gonk,” she hissed, scowling at him. “What the fuck were you thinking?”  
“I used a sedative,” he explained, his tone flat and tired. “She tried to enable her tracker. I had no choice.” V moved away from him, eyes scrunched shut, fingers at her temples.  
“I offered her some tea…” Takemura went on and V thought she’d misheard him.  
“You kidnap Hanako Arasaka and offer her a cup of fuckin’ tea?!” she said in disbelief, her voice suddenly shrill.  
“Yes…” he answered, lowering his gaze. “She respectfully declined.”  
“You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!”  
V sighed and looked at Hanako Arasaka, seated at the small table near the windows, a candle and a tea bowl in front of her and went over to tell her everything, just as Takemura had asked her to. The soldier put his rifle aside and proceeded to introduce V, she was surprised to see him this nervous, constantly clenching and unclenching his hands, rubbing his palm against the other and she felt his sorrow seep into her chest, knowing that this was their one and only chance to convince Hanako to believe them.  
She spoke her truth in a harshness that made Takemura flinch, but left Hanako Arasaka unmoved.  
The soldier took her side, trying to convince the Arasaka heiress of the legitimacy of her claims, when a sudden noise startled the three of them.  
Goro held her gaze and shook his head softly, letting her know that there was no chance in hell Hanako would side with them, before he asked her to check the hallway.  
A faint static trickled in the back of her skull as she walked through the room.  
“I got a bad feelin’ about this…” she muttered to herself, scanning the hallway, when the atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted.

“Argh, not now!” she heard Takemura growl behind her back. “Arasaka – they have found us!” seconds before the entire room was riddled with bullets and the soldier hurried to shield Hanako Arasaka behind his body.  
“Dammit!” V screamed, running back to him, when a flashbang exploded right in front of her, turning her entire world into a blank canvas. She found herself crouching behind a ratty shelf when her sight returned, special forces flooding the room, Takemura trying to fend them off, but they had backed him into the bedroom alcove. She lifted her head only to see Adam Smasher carry Hanako Arasaka out of the window into a hovering AV, when one of the soldiers spotted her, his gun aimed at her head.  
A ripple went through the ground at her feet and everything shifted, furniture and walls drifted aside, the room finally coming apart under the onslaught of bullets and explosions and she plummeted into the darkness.

Redness clouded her field of vision, dissolving into fragments and then there was Johnny, yelling at her. Pain burned through every neuron in her body, her holo was littered with countless warnings regarding her body and cyberware and she desperately wanted to close her eyes again, submit to the darkness that knew no pain.  
“Last chance to get the fuck out of here,” Silverhand ordered, motioning her to follow him, but all she could think about was Goro, alone against an army of Arasaka soldiers.  
_“Takemura!”_ she coughed. _“Can’t leave him back there.”  
_“Forget him, guy’s toast!” Johnny argued. “‘Less you wanna wind up like him!”  
Her heart was in her throat as she pushed herself off the ground, fear burying its sharp claws inside her chest, making it hard to breathe.  
“C’mon, we got no time to lose!” Johnny urged, running towards a neon lit hallway, but V just stood there, unmoved. “V!” She looked around, eyes bleary, vision still cloudy and started stumbling towards the light.  
“Keep low and eyes three-sixty! They’re in the hallway!” Johnny warned her as she stood in front of the neon cross, Johnny to her right, eager to guide her towards safety while she found herself staring at the hole in the wall to her left.  
“Don’t fuckin’ do this,” Johnny objected. “That ol’ ‘Saka dog’s probably already dead.”  
_“You don’t know that,”_ she rasped, panting. Silverhand stepped back into the room, an incredulous expression on his face.  
“Don’t tell me you caught fuckin’ feelings for the old man, kid,” he scoffed, finding the answer in her pained expression.  
_“I’m sorry, Johnny, but I just can’t,”_ she breathed, slipping through the wall to fight the soldiers in her way towards the staircase.  
“The fuck you’re doin’?” Johnny growled, appearing on the stairs. “You lost it?! He’s beyond any sort of help,” but she ignored him, pushed him aside as she took the stairs, two at a time.  
She just had to get to him in time, she told herself, she had to reach him while he was still alive, so she could bring him to Vik. She would not fail another one of her friends, not like she had failed Jackie, even if that meant dying at his side, at least she would fall into her grave with a weapon in her hand. 

Takemura had taken cover behind a shelf to check the remaining bullets in his magazine. With only thirty rounds left in his submachine gun, he knew that he was going to die here today. He sighed deeply, exhaustion spreading through his spent body as he came to terms with his fate. Not the most glamorous way to go, he thought to himself, but at least he’d go down fighting for something he believed in. The bodyguard looked at his shoulder, the white cotton of his shirt tinted red where a bullet had nabbed him and asked himself what he'd missed.  
They had been so thorough, their entire plan so carefully and meticulously crafted that there simply shouldn’t be any room for failure, yet Yorinobu’s right hand Smasher had found them with ease and there was only one loose end to look at – Wakako Okada. His intuition about that old snake had been right, she was an opportunist who sold them out to Arasaka, not a grain of honor in her wilting body. Takemura halfheartedly wondered how high the price on his head had been in the end and loaded his weapon, steeling himself for the hail of bullets that would most certainly kill him, desperately hoping that V had somehow made it out this mess alive.

V mowed through the soldiers with the force of desperation, Jinchu Maru separating heads and limbs from the bodies coming her way. Relief flooded her system when she spotted the room number 303 and she hurried to enter, finding three soldiers closing in on the corner she'd last seen him in. She buried her katana between the ribs of the first one and launched herself at the remaining fighters, slashing their throats before they even realized that she’d entered the room.  
Movement behind the counter made her spin around, katana at the ready, overjoyed to see Takemura, alive and well.  
“You should not have returned!” he rasped, panting. “You will die here with me.”  
“There was no way in hell I’d leave you behind, Goro,” she grinned wryly, sheathing her katana to switch to a rifle. “Thank me later! Need to find a way out now – fast!”  
“There are empty rooms to the right!” Takemura growled, moving through the rubble at their feet. “It is our only chance!” They fought the onslaught of soldiers side by side, inching their way through the destroyed hallway, eerily illuminated by red flares that reminded V of her malfunctioning interface right after her fall.  
“Hurry, Goro, we’re almost there!” she shouted, dropping onto the lower floor through a hole in the ceiling, the Arasaka bodyguard at her heels. She gunned down the remaining soldier in their way and stumbled towards the exit, falling to her face on the concrete.  
“Oh shit,” she breathed, feeling the Relic malfunction rendering her body useless as she tried to turn on her side.  
“Be careful,” Takemura urged, appearing in her field of vision, outstretching his arm to help her up before he changed his mind and moved away. “We must go different ways! Alone we have a better chance!”  
“Really?! Think so?!” she snarled, barely able to lift her cramping hands.  
“Then go! Now!” the bodyguard husked before he started running towards the shadows, leaving her behind on the cold asphalt.  
V closed her eyes and swallowed hard, unable to ban the exhaustion from her body. She took a deep, greedy breath and pinged her vehicle as she rolled onto her back, hoping to see the stars, but the night sky was obscured by the city’s light smog.

Takemura looked at her, her beaten and bruised body, writhing strung out on the asphalt and it tore him apart to leave her behind like that, knowing that by staying together he’d endanger her too, since it would still be him they were after. He felt the bond between them, new and unusual, tugging at his heartstrings as he moved further away, the hollow of his chest aching, his heart begging him to kneel down next to V, to lift her up and carry her towards safety with him, but his head knew better, common sense and training taking over, the mathematical logic behind probability in relation to survival so convincing that he turned around and disappeared into the darkness of the city, leaving the mercenary to fend for herself.


	10. The Maze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takemura and V are dealing with the aftermath of everything that has happened at Arasaka Tower, unsure what the future will hold for either one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is – the last chapter, filled with spoilers for the "The Devil"-Ending, which literally ended me on my first playthrough.  
> I just wanted my nomad V to be happy :C
> 
> Anyway, thank you guys for taking the time to read this 10-chapter rambling of mine, rest assured that there will be more :D  
> Loved all you kudos, comments and interactions with my work, it's stuff like this that makes writing worthwhile!
> 
> Best,  
> Sasou

The call came in the middle of the night, but Takemura was awake, sitting in his dark living room, meditating. Caller ID identified the person trying to reach him as an Arasaka employee and he felt a sudden dread, but decided to answer anyway.  
“Takemura-san,” the stranger greeted him curtly. “I am calling on behalf of Hanako-sama, there has been an… incident with the Night City resident Valerie Harper she has placed in our facility fifty-six days ago.”  
Fear wrapped its ice-cold fingers around his heart and for a second he felt like there was no air left inside the room around him.  
“An incident?” he inquired, raising a brow, professional calmness taking over.  
“The patient grew increasingly agitated during routine testing and proceeded to threaten the doctor evaluating her condition, demanding to speak to Hanako Arasaka,” the female employee sighed. “She then went on to damage her living quarters to an extent that forced my superiors to remotely administer a sedative – the patient has been out for around twelve hours and will likely stay unconscious for another twenty-four to thirty-six.”  
“Why is it that you contact me, when V so clearly asked to speak to Hanako-sama?” Takemura asked quietly.  
“Hanako-sama has more important business to tend to,” the research assistant explained. “But it was her suggestion to send someone the patient trusts to update her on her current state. A friendly face might soften the impact of the news – which are not ideal, to be frank.”  
“Not ideal?” the former bodyguard echoed.  
“The extraction of the Relic was a great success,” the woman on the other end continued. “However, the patient’s neural structures remain corrupted despite our enthusiastic efforts to reverse the damage. If they continue to disintegrate at their current rate, she will likely die before the year is ending.” A tensed silence fell between them and Takemura tried to make any sense of the things he’d just been told. He had been so sure that Arasaka would be able to help, even heal V, to give her another chance at life, that it never occurred to him that she might die, after all. The former bodyguard closed his eyes and sighed deeply.  
“What will those remaining months look like?” he inquired, his voice flat.  
“Her symptoms will be manageable for most of the time,” the Arasaka employee told him. “There will be a significant loss of cognitive and motor functions towards the end, the last few days, maybe weeks, the patient will be bedridden with an increasing amount of pain. Palliative care is advised.”  
“And it is me, who is supposed to tell her about her horrible fate?” he growled, no longer able to hide his exasperation.  
“Yes,” the research assistant confirmed. “But Hanako-sama is considering a generous, albeit unusual offer. She will contact you in the morning, before your journey towards the space station will begin, to instruct you on the task at hand. Do you have any further request regarding the patient?”  
“Just… keep her safe until I arrive,” he husked, his heart heavy. “That is all I ask.”  
“Rest assured we will monitor her closely,” the female employee replied.  
“Thank you,” the Arasaka soldier breathed before he ended the call, knowing that he would not find any sleep tonight.

Takemura had just nodded off, when the second call of the day came through, this time accompanied by a more familiar face.  
“Takemura-san,” he was greeted by his former protégé. “Hanako-sama wishes to speak to you.”  
“So I have been told,” Takemura retorted, trying to suppress a yawn, the loss of sleep taking its toll. “My departure towards the space station will be in an hour.”  
“The contents of your conversation are sensitive and subjected to absolute non-disclosure,” Oda went on to explain. “I will relay your signal to a secure line so you can discuss in private.”  
“ _Arigatou,”_ the older soldier said curtly before Oda’s face disappeared from his holo only to be replaced with the blank expression of the Arasaka heiress.  
“Hanako-sama,” he rasped, bowing his head.  
“Takemura-san,” she returned the polite greeting. “I assume Professor Kusama’s assistant has already contacted you in regard to V’s… condition?”  
“Yes, she has,” he husked, straightening in his seat, rubbing his hands. “But you wished to discuss something beside that,” he cut to the chase.  
“Why so impatient, Takemura?” Hanako Arasaka inquired, a displeased expression ghosting across her face.  
“I apologize for my bluntness, Hanako-sama,” he hurried to add. “My night was short and filled with troubling news.”  
“I understand that you are worried about V’s health,” Hanako concluded, her pale gaze holding his. “And I decided to make her an offer that might extend her life.”  
“Hanako-sama,” Takemura breathed. “You gave her your word that you would save her.”  
“I promised that I would try,” she contradicted. “And I generously administered the best care someone of her standing could wish for.”  
“And I appreciate your efforts,” the former bodyguard said. “But there must be more that we can do.”  
“This is why I wished to speak with you,” she replied, interlacing her fingers as if she wanted to pray. “As I was informed, V’s neural structures have been damaged beyond repair, simply because the Relic was left inside her damaged neural port for too long. Every fiber of her body has been restructured to accustom the engram originally housed on the Relic, preparations were made so it could take over.”  
“As far as I understood, yes.” Takemura agreed, noticing the overwhelming tiredness seeping into his bones.  
“Her body may be beyond repair, but we can still preserve her soul,” Hanako went on and the former soldier started to understand where she was going with this. “I wish to offer Valerie Harper a place in our “Secure Your Soul” program.”  
“This is most generous of you, Hanako-sama,” Takemura retorted quickly. “But V will never consent to be uploaded to Mikoshi!”  
“She may need some encouragement,” Hanako agreed. “Which is why I send you to bring forward my offer.”  
“What if she refuses?” the former soldier asked, his voice low.  
“She may return to earth to live out her remaining days,” Hanako said without any emotion. “But if she want’s to live, Secure Your Soul is her only option.”

The space station was small, the low ceilings weighing heavy on him, the hostility of this place so palpable he wanted to turn around as soon as he set foot in the airlock. He wondered how V had held out for fifty-six days in an environment so sterile and cold it made even him shiver.  
He was welcomed by Professor Kusama’s assistant, Yuna, whose honest friendliness unnerved him almost as much as being trapped in this tin can that hurled through space.  
“Dr. Kusama asked me to extend her apologies, but she is needed in another meeting,” Yuna explained while her fingers flew across the keyboard as she stared at the screen in front of her. “You get to visit your friend in a few minutes, I just need to verify the contract.”  
A noncommittal hum was Takemura’s curt answer as he stood in the room, his arms folded in front of his chest.  
“It is not often that Hanako Arasaka offers someone a place in the Secure Your Soul program,” Yuna pondered, her big eyes peering at him from behind the screen. “V must be very special.”  
“She is indeed,” Takemura said softly as he felt a faint tug in his heart.  
He had tried to forget about her, hunkered down in his hideout until Hanako had contacted him, welcoming him back into the ranks of Arasaka without hesitation. He’d spend a few days in a suite at Hotel Raito, indulging on the luxuries he’d been deprived off as the fallen soldier who roamed Night City’s filthy streets while looking for revenge. But no fancy food, fine threads or high-end accommodations could give him what he realized he was desperately missing: The comforting feeling of companionship, a friendly face in the crowd, dumb jokes and witty banter. V had truly brought some levity into his life, shining like a light into the darkness he’d found himself in. All things considered, Yuna was right, Valerie was very special, at least to him.  
  
It was hard to look at her, the way she’d withdrawn into herself, curled up in her cot, her face pale and sharp around the edges, just like the one time he’d checked on her at Vik’s. He was unable to align the drugged and passed out husk inhabiting the sheets with the V he’d picked up at Misty’s mere weeks ago – sure, there were bags under her eyes and flecks of dried blood on her upper lip, but she still looked alive, the fierceness in her gaze unwavering.  
Every fiber of his being yearned to touch her, but this was not the time or place for it, so he wrapped his fingers around a Rubik’s Cube he’d found on the floor instead, fidgeting with it until he noticed the subtle changes in her face that let him know that she was finally waking up.  


***

The weeks on the Arasaka space station had worn her out, mentally and physically, each day an endless stream of exams and tests that were always the same, like she was caught in some kind of time loop concocted to wear her thin until she’d finally break and give in.  
She found no peace in the nights either, with Johnny’s voice as a constant echo in the back of her head and a reoccurring nightmare about Jackie’s last moments in which he handed her the Relic, making her wake up in cold sweat every time, without failure.  
After they had given her phone privileges, V had called the people she’d considered her closest friends, but the conversations had left her in a state of deep despair. They didn’t get what she was going through, some of them didn’t even make an effort to understand her decision, so she hung up and retreated into her cot, staring at the wall for hours on end before sleep finally pulled her under, this time enveloping her in a darkness so deep and final, that she half-heartedly hoped she’d died.

In hindsight she should’ve listened to Johnny as they were sitting on the rooftop, contemplating their options and he warned her that siding with Arasaka would fuck her over in the long run, but instead she chose to trust Takemura, blinded by his loyal belief that Arasaka could truly save her.  
By now she knew that _he_ had been the devil Misty had seen in her cards, a silver-eyed and -tongued one, who had made her believe that he actually cared about her, as a person and a friend, maybe even more, but by now she was certain that Goro Takemura would have done almost anything to be welcomed back into the fold of Arasaka’s high and mighty.  
V remembered how he’d picked her up at Misty’s all dressed in white, calm and confident, keeping Hellman in check. How he’d fought alongside her to free Hanako from the house arrest Yorinobu had put her under, his thinly-veiled threats directed at Hellman whenever he doubted V’s abilities… All that nothing more than a ruse to get her in front of Arasaka’s board of directors, a plan that turned to shit the second Yorinobu sent his elite squad to obliterate the entire board including Hanako, leaving her and Takemura no choice but to fight their way through the entire headquarter, all the way up to Yorinobu’s office to finally stop him.  
  
She remembered how she had stumbled into the last room separating them from the CEO’s office, laying on her back, her vision blurry with electric blue artifacts as she looked up to see Adam Smasher coming for her. She barely managed to evade his first blow when Takemura went up against the cyborg to divert his attention, giving her a few valuable seconds to pull herself back together. It was a strenuous fight, but they defeated Smasher, the grim satisfaction of putting a bullet between his eyes in Johnny’s name rejoicing her for the last part of her journey.  
She then staggered through the corridor, Takemura at her side while Hanako instructed them to spare her brother. Before V could enter Yorinobu’s office, the soldier held her back, his fingers gently wrapping around her arm.  
“I will stay here,” he rasped. “If I go through that door, I will kill him. And your agreement with Hanako-sama will be undone. It is the last favor I can do for you.”  
“Do yourself a favor, Goro,” she panted, fighting the dizziness that came with the Relic malfunctions. “Ghost… get outta here."  
“Pardon?” he asked. She looked at Goro, the sincerity in his gaze breaking her heart and she wished that he would just find the strength to leave all of this behind, start a new life, maybe even as a nomad.  
“Forget Arasaka,” she implored. “Don’t you get it… ? You were Saburo’s bodyguard… and you failed him. Think they’re gonna raise their glasses… to you?”  
“I… I do not know,” he retorted, lowering his gaze.  
“Hit the streets, disappear… get gigs, feed cats… Just stay clear of Arasaka.”  
“You know I cannot do that,” he countered with a lopsided smile. “But I thank you. Truly. Go, V. Finish what we started.” He send her off with a small bow and it pained her to leave him behind like that, knowing that he would return to his old ways the second Hanako Arasaka seized control over the empire.  
She had cursed herself for letting her guard down, allowing him to compromise everything that had made her the fearless mercenary she’d been during her time in Night City, turned her into an accomplice in aiding Hanako Arasaka with fulfilling her atrocious plan to implant her fathers Relic into the body of her discredited brother Yorinobu.  
V tried hating him, willed every fiber in her being to abnegate even the faintest feeling of affection she’d harbored for him, but she was too powerless, tired and broken.  


And then there he was, the devil himself, all dressed in black, leaning against the desk in her living quarters, the Rubik’s Cube in his hands, visiting her after a particularly shit day that ended with her scaring away the doctor and trashing her room in a fit of white hot rage.  
“You look just as you did when I found you in the rubbish,” he husked. “Get up.”  
“Takemura. Blunt as usual,” V snarked, sticking to the honorifics a desperate attempt to keep her distance.  
“They say you demanded someone tell you the truth,” he explained, eyeing the cube. “They have kept you here in this cell? For days? It is barbaric.”  
“Why the fuck do you care?” she scoffed, and Takemura looked at her for the first time. “Come all the way here to take me home?”  
The former bodyguard stepped aside and placed the cube on the desk, his fingers lingering on it, before he looked at V again.  
“They asked me to speak with you,” he said curtly.  
“Saw Saburo Arasaka’s back. In Yorinobu’s body,” V griped.  
“Yes. Justice has been done,” the soldier said without any emotion and the former mercenary felt anger surge inside her chest.  
“So – got your revenge? Feeling satisfied?” she hissed, crossing her arms in front of her body.  
“I believe Hanako Arasaka chose the best solution,” he retorted.  
“You really believe that?” V croaked, a wry grin on her lips. “Y’know, the Arasakas belong in some sad, old tragedy. Some Shakespear-level shit right there. Yorinobu ‘specially”  
“You regret his fate?” Takemura asked.  
“I regret the part I played in it,” V admitted. “Wanted out of his dad’s shadow, whatever the cost. Died at the hand of his worst nightmare.” She’d spend countless sleepless nights mulling over Yorinobu’s initial decision to murder his father and after all she’d seen and done, she could not blame him any longer. Maybe Yorinobu was the only one who got it right, but she’d probably not live long enough to see what Arasaka would turn into.  
“What’re you gonna do now?” she inquired. “Still aim to protect Saburo’s ass?”  
“I have been transferred to Japan. I will fly from here to Takamatsu,” the Arasaka soldier retorted.  
“Why?”  
“New times, new duties,” he countered lightly. “But we say far too much about me.”

“Fine, so what is it you got to tell me?” V asked with an exasperated sigh, surprised to see sadness in Takemura’s expression as he stared at the cube he’d kept between his fingers.  
“I am sorry to say it is not good,” he husked, his voice low. “I will be blunt. The surgery did not help.” V kept her eyes trained on him as he moved her desk chair around. “You will be dead before winter.”  
There it was, the deathblow she’d been waiting for since the moment Vik had told her about the Relic chippin’ away at her brain. Sure, initially she had been hopeful, but when the days turned into weeks and weeks into months on this godforsaken space station and she didn’t make any progress on the tests, she began to prepare herself for the worst. Takemura being the one telling her felt like some sort of karmic retribution, a sick and twisted joke even.  
“Fuck,” she pressed through gritted teeth.  
“You must accept the truth, then listen to what I say,” Takemura appeased. “There are options.”  
“I don’t fuckin’ care about my options,” she snarled, glowering at the soldier. “You promised Arasaka would save me!”  
Takemura sat down, rubbing his hands together. “Please, feel no anger. I wish to speak about an alternative.”  
“What are you talking about?” V snapped, overwhelmed with the sudden hopelessness of her situation. “Trusted you once already. You let me down.” Takemura just held her gaze, his expression stoic as ever.  
“You may join the ‘Secure Your Soul” program. Hanako Arasaka has already agreed to it,” he offered her. “You will leave your destroyed body behind, Arasaka will store your engram in Mikoshi until a way is found to transfer it to a new one.”  
“Why would I be stored?” V asked, narrowing her eyes. “Can’t I get a new body right off?"  
“With technology as it is now, this is impossible,” he retorted.  
“Seemed pretty fuckin’ possible for Saburo Arasaka,” V dismissed him.  
“He returned in his sons’s body. Tissue compatibility made things easier,” Takemura explained, his tone oddly cold, which made V sick to her stomach.  
“Sorry, not buyin’ it,” she said flat out. “Arasaka’s out to lock me up.”  
“You overstate your importance,” he lectured her. “To the Arasakas, I fear you are nobody – were nobody. With this offer, Hanako Arasaka rewards you generously for your service. There is not, as you say, “more to the story”.”  
“Nope, doesn’t sound good to me,” V rejected the offer. “They will do whatever the fuck the want with my mind, and I’ve grown fuckin' tired of being treated like a lab rat. I am done.”  
Takemura got off the chair and grabbed a tablet he’d brought with him.  
“There will be a contract to protect you. Sign it, and you will live,” he said simply.  
V took the tablet off his hand and browsed the legalese.  
“They’ll turn me into company property,” she scoffed. “Do you really think any of this is in my best interest? What if I say no?”  
“This is not a prison. You will take your things and return to Night City,” he said, something shifting in his gaze. “Were I you, I would sign.” He held her gaze, a sudden vulnerability in his eyes.

“I should’ve just gone with Alt,” V mumbled, lowering her gaze. “Being just another set of data behind the blackwall is still a better fate than fading away into the darkness like I would in Mikoshi.”  
“V,” Takemura rasped, his tone pleading, his fingers reaching out for her wrist before he could stop himself. “This is another chance at life. Please, consider taking it.”  
She looked into Takemura’s eyes, finding nothing but sincerity, but she should know better than to trust him. Still, she was too fucking young to die, too curious to not want to see how this could play out. V lifted her finger and pressed it on the scanner before she could think about it and witnessed a soft sigh falling from Takemura’s lips.  
“A good choice,” he husked. “The engram station is ready for you. We should not wait for your condition to worsen.” He stood up, ready to leave the room.  
“Gonna see each other again?” V asked, her voice rough.  
“I believe we will,” Takemura answered as she followed him towards the door.  
“So… see you,” she breathed, placing her palm on his chest. He lowered his face, bringing his lips closer to her ears.  
“Valerie,” he rasped quietly, to which V closed her eyes, digging her nails into his chest.  
“I promise to await your return. Visit me in Kagawa –,“ he murmured, every syllable brushing against her skin, making her shiver. “I will show you what is real food.” The affection in his voice was palpable and deep, the realization that he cared about her after all made her heart stumble inside her chest, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.  
“Please don’t let me fade away, Goro,” her voice caught in her throat.  
“Never,” he answered, his fingertips ghosting across her knuckles before she stepped out of the room and followed the Arasaka employee to the engram station.  
  
“Hey, what is your name,” she inquired, her heart suddenly a little lighter.  
“Hajime,” he answered curtly.  
“Hajime, lemme ask you somethin’. What would you say to a person who walked right into their greatest foe’s jail to save their life?”  
“Hm,” he pondered. “I would say, “All right. But do not forget the way home”.”  
With that, V stepped into the room, looking at the team of scientists, then the station. The floor underneath her naked soles felt cold, just like the entire environment, but the small flame burning inside her chest kept her warm as she slipped onto the chair. She stared at the bullet Vik had taken from her skull and wondered what Jackie would say, seeing her surrender to the enemy, facing their shared fear of fading away instead of going out with a bang. V placed the pendant around her neck and straightened it before she finally leaned back and looked into the light. Maybe things would’ve been easier, had she just died under the rubble in the landfill, but if the past few months had taught her anything, it was that there were always things worth fighting for. And she would fight like hell to find her way back home.


End file.
